


AoS Tumblr Drabble Prompts

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 100
Words: 25,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short drabbles, requested via tumblr prompt memes, covering a number of different ships and friendships/work relationships. Ships/characters will be labeled in the title of each chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ward/Simmons (Water- 11/11/13)

**Author's Note:**

> All prompts are in chapters according to date written. They are titled based on the prompt and include a note about what pairings or characters they involve.

**Water**

It briefly crosses Jemma’s mind that, after jumping off a plane, she’s going to have a hard time getting into one again whenever they’re rescued. But for now, she’d just exhausted, and glad to be alive, and glad to know that she’ll get to see Fitz again, and her family again, and the rest of the team. But the last thing on her mind before drifting off after the emotional roller coaster that today has been, is that despite the fact that they have just fallen out of the sky into the water well over an hour from shore, Grant Ward’s strong arms make her feel safe.


	2. Ward/Simmons (Secret- 11/11/13)

**Secret**

Grant Ward doesn’t know why Jemma is so insistent upon keeping their relationship a secret from Fitz; he knows he can take him in a fight, no matter how passionately protective he gets. When he points this out, Jemma just raises raises an eyebrow.

"Part of his job is to make bombs and weapons, he doesn’t need to be in the same country as you to make your life difficult."


	3. Ward/Simmons (Please- 11/11/13)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reformatted 10/6/14
> 
> Each chapter will be one individual drabble. Chapter titles will include the date written and the characters/pairings, for your convenience.

**Please**

It’s not that she hasn’t imagined being in this situation before, and it’s not that having Grant Ward’s lips on her lips and hands on her waist is anything other than mind-blowing, but Jemma is pretty certain that a lab full of dangerous chemicals in delicate glass bottles is not where this should be happening. So the tinkling of beakers as she’s backed into their holding rack forces her to pull away and say “please, anywhere we can’t break things.” Which is how they end up in the cargo bay.


	4. Ward/Simmons (Lightness- 11/11/13)

**Lightness**

He tries to tell himself that it’s not a good idea to get involved Jemma; she’s never seen the kind of things he’s seen, never been the kind of messed up that he is. But then he returns from a mission that just destroys him. There was too much bloodshed on both sides, and while he’s glad to have made it out alive, he thinks he might have sacrificed a part of himself to do so. And she’s sitting there, pressing a mug full of hot tea into his cold hands, and looking at him like the blood on his hands (literally, his hands are covered in the blood of a dead man whose clothes he searched through for some sort of astronomical chart) doesn’t matter at all. And he thinks that maybe, with her help, he can come back from this.


	5. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 1/12/14)

"I don't understand," she said slowly, "you want me to do what with this spoon?"

"I’ve seen it on tv, if you redirect the light from that lamp onto the ropes, they should burn through it and free me."

Jemma had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “Skye, that is not actually possible.”

"Well, then I think we’re screwed."

Fortunately for them, the walls then pulled outwards and Coulson’s exasperated voice sounded over the intercom, “That’s it for today, just… do better tomorrow.”


	6. Fitz/Skye (Once Upon a Time In Wonderland Crossover- 1/26/14)

**Once Upon a Time in Wonderland Crossover**

From the moment they arrive in Wonderland, Skye is in awe of everything around them. She wants to explore everything and see every single place this new world has to offer. That also means she has a tendency to get herself into more than a little trouble. Fortunately, as wary as he is of their new home, Fitz always comes through when it counts.


	7. Ward/Simmons (Star Trek AU- 1/26/14)

**Star Trek AU**

When Fitz and Ward hadn’t checked in at the agreed time, a knot started to grow in Jemma stomach. After three hours without hearing from them, Jemma seriously considered beaming down to find them herself. She eventually excused herself to her lab, in hopes that it would distract her.

When Ward and Fitz were finally beamed on board, more than four hours after they should have been, Jemma surprised everyone by running into Ward’s arms before she started checking Fitz for injuries.


	8. Ward/Simmons (Best Man & Maid of Honor AU- 1/26/14)

**Best Man & Maid of Honor AU**

Jemma should be entirely focused on her maid of honor duties right now. Skye has, strangely enough, managed to get the tulle underskirt of her dress, stuck on the chain lock of the bathroom door. But instead of gently working the fabric free of the chains, she’s staring through the cracked open door at Skye’s older brother, who fits into his tux better than any man should be allowed to.


	9. Jemma, Skye & May (Sparta AU- 1/26/14)

**Sparta AU**

Jemma didn’t enjoy the training sessions with Melinda as much as Skye did. Skye seemed to live for the training, always ending the day with dirt all over her clothes and more than a few scrapes and bruises. Jemma much preferred the days when they stayed inside and focused on academics. Skye spent those days fidgeting in her seat and wishing she could be outside.

However different the two friends were, they both adamantly agreed that life in Sparta was was far preferable to that in Athens, where they would already be married off and having children, despite each being only 16.


	10. Ward/Simmons (Meet Through Skye AU- 1/26/14)

**Meet Through Skye AU**

Ward & Simmons Meet Through Skye (Ward/Simmons)

After a four hour class that ended with her lab partner, Fitz, having to use the emergency eyewash station (he’s an engineering major, she’s not even sure why he’s taking this class), Jemma Simmons is too tired to notice at least three people who have said hi to her and the new decorations in her hallway. But she can’t help but notice the change in her room.

"Skye," she calls, "did you clean? I can actually see the floor, you must have cleaned. This is miracle, we should celebrate. I actually got a flyer for that club you wanted check out. Tonight is ladies night. If you want, I can call Darcy and we can go out for dinner than head over there."

There’s no response, but Jemma can hear the clicking of computer keys and the bassline spilling out of Skye’s headphones from the other side of the dressers they have sitting in the middle of room to give them privacy.

Jemma peals off the grubby shirt she wore to her lab, thankful that she remembered not to wear anything nice. She was meticulous in her work, but Fitz wasn’t comfortable enough with chemicals and flames to be trusted near some of her nicer clothes. Grabbing a sheer white blouse and pulling it over her shoulders, she crosses to Skye’s half of the room to get an opinion on weekend plans.

Needless to say, she’s a bit shocked when she realizes it’s not Skye seated on the other side of the room, but a tall man with dark hair, who looks to be a few years older than Jemma.

"Excuse me, who the hell are you?" Jemma nearly screams at him.

He finally looks up from the computer in front of him, and he seems nearly as shocked as she is. That’s when Jemma realizes that he blouse is still completely unbuttoned. She crosses her arms over her chest and asks again.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"

It’s at this point that Skye finally makes an appearance. She places her shower caddy down in the corner next her bed and shakes her long, wet hair out from the towel wrapped around it, completely oblivious to her roommate’s surprise and outrage.

"Jemma," she begins, "I’d like you to meet my older brother, Grant. He got an extra day off from work and came down to surprise me."


	11. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 2/13/14)

Her smile slipped as she stepped through the door.

Keeping up a cover, especially with so little time to prepare it, was still difficult for Jemma.

"I swear his hand got any closer to my ass, I was going to pull out my gun and shoot him."

"I know," Ward said calmingly, "and that’s why we’re taking a short break in here."

"A short break in the supply closet where everyone will think we were actually fooling around."

"Yes," he took a moment his hands through her hair, which Skye had curled earlier that evening, "so now we have to go back out there and sell it."


	12. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 2/13/14)

He touched her shaking hands slowly, "Just breathe. It's going to be alright."

She couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it; he was the one bleeding out, he shouldn’t have been comforting her.

She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths, she could do this, she could keep him alive long enough for help to arrive.

"Okay," she whispered, doing her best to make her voice sound soothing and not at all panicked, "now I’m going to tie your belt around your thigh to form a tourniquet and that should slow the blood flow but it will probably hurt, although not really any more that the gaping thigh wound…"

His eyelids fluttered, and that broke her out of her nervous babbling. Refocusing herself, she got back to work, silently hoping that the team would arrive sooner rather than later.


	13. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 2/13/14)

"Just jump!" he yelled, stretching out his hands.

If anyone knew how hard it would be for her to just jump, it was Grant Ward, which meant that the situation was dire. Jemma forced herself not to look back, the last thing she needed was more terror. 

'You can do this, it's only a few feet; it's not a big deal,' she tried to give herself a pep talk.

Then she sprinted the few steps to the edge of the building, her eyes never leaving his, before pushing off the ledge.

And of course, just like he promised all those months ago, he was right there to catch her.


	14. Ward/Simmons (Bartender AU- 2/23/14)

He slides into a seat at the bar, resisting the urge to just put his head down on it and fall asleep. His mission was completed quicker than anticipated, now all he needs to do is wait a few hours for an agent to arrive to debrief him, if he can stay awake that long.

He’s so exhausted, he doesn’t even notice when the bartender approaches.

"You look like you need coffee more than you need a drink," her chirpiness and her gorgeous English accent knock him from his trance. Taking in her petite frame and sunny smile, he decides he’d like a whole lot more than that, it’s a shame he only has about three hours until Agent Romanoff arrives.


	15. Ward/Simmons (Olympics AU Pt 1- 2/23/14)

She first time she spots him, she’s having lunch in the Olympic Village with Skye, an American skier she’d met a day prior. He looks angry, but gorgeous, and clearly everyone else has picked up on the anger because they clear out his way immediately.

That night, she’s watching some of the coverage with her teammates, drinking a cup of tea her partner, Fitz, has prepared for her, when he appears on the TV screen. He’s talking to a reporter about his trial runs on the skeleton course, and he’s just as gruff as he appeared earlier, giving the interviewer short, one-word answers. But at least now she knows more about him. Grant Ward, age thirty, representing Team USA.

She doesn’t know why, but she keeps looking for him around the village, and he keeps appearing. He gets off a bus as she and Fitz get on to the head to the team skating event. He sits by himself in a corner of the cafeteria, and she swears she can feels his eyes boring into the back of her head, but when she turns around he’s looking at her food.

Fast forward about a week, and she and Fitz are on top of the world, having just completed a long program ice dance that they’re positive will net them a medal. She’s about to step off the ice when she sees him, surrounded by his teammates, and staring right at her. If her heart hadn’t already been beating a mile a minute, she’s positive his gaze would have done it to her.


	16. Ward/Simmons (Olympics AU Pt 2- 2/23/14)

Jemma and Fitz had intended to leave as soon as their events were over, to take advantage of a little time away from the rink, but Skye had convinced them to stick around through the closing ceremonies. At first, she’d promised Jemma that she didn’t want to miss out on all the hotties once they were finished with their events, but when Jemma didn’t, Skye resorted to flat out begging.

The promise of hotties, which seemed to be Skye’s number one priority after she’d taken home a silver medal in the ladies’ moguls, is what had them out tonight. Unfortunately for Skye, she hadn’t met anyone who she deemed hot enough yet. Or perhaps that was fortunate, since at this point Skye was slurring her words.

Slurred words aside, Skye was still sober enough to notice the pink flush that crept through Jemma’s cheeks as they Grant Ward came into view. As he passed by, Skye pretended to trip over her own feet, and went crashing down, taking him with her.

"Watch where you’re walking," he yelled from underneath her. It wasn’t until Skye stood up and he got a clear view of her companion that he considered how harsh he’s been.

"Jemma Simmons, right?" he asked. "I saw your skate last week. You guys were great."

Jemma wasn’t sure what to say. She was used to being prepared, she had devoted her life to preparing (for tests, for competitions, for the little pranks Fitz always tried to pull, no matter how unsuccessful either one was). And now she had absolutely no idea what to do.

"Err… yes. You’re Grant Ward, right?" She was pretty sure that admitting she had memorized his stats from the Olympics website (Grant Ward, born September 1st, 30 years old, from Boston, Massachusetts) wasn’t the way to start things.

"Do you need help getting her back to her room," he asked.

"Absolutely."


	17. Ward/Simmons (Shipwreck AU- 2/23/14)

"Don’t touch that," she snaps at him for what must be the eightieth time since they were marooned on this godforsaken island.

"Fine, you find the berries we actually can eat. I don’t even know why you insisted that I go foraging with you, if all you do is yell at me."

He knew it was whiny of him, and he knew she was only looking out for him, but after a week out here with 3 chatty strangers, his patience was wearing thing.

"Someone needs to climb up the trees and grab the coconuts, and I don’t have the requisite body strength," she tells him, her nearly unshakable, pleasant demeanor returning. What she neglects to mention is that she also really enjoys the view of his ass as he climbs the aforementioned coconut trees.


	18. Ward/Simmons (Wedding Planner AU- 2/23/14)

For the umpteenth time, Jemma double checked the measurements from the tailor with the measurements Skye had given her. She was at work early, having given up on her morning running halfway through due to her hangover from the night before. Really, she should never have let Darcy talk her into barhopping the night before she had early suit-fittings. Really, should never have let Darcy talk her into barhopping at all.

It had gone well, until Jemma had knocked a tray of drinks onto the guy Darcy had spent half the night ogling. Darcy told her multiple times that it wasn’t her fault, and had even gone so far as to thank her for letting her know now that the guy, who had berated her for ruining his suit, was a complete douchebag, to be avoided at all costs.

Still, Jemma felt guilty. And not being able to finish her run only added to that.

But at least she’d had time to come in early and triple check the suit measurements for Leo’s groomsmen, Bruce, Tony, Steve, and Grant.

At 10 AM on the dot, the door to her little shop opened and in walked Leo, followed by three other men.

"Is everyone going to be able to make it?" she asked, concerned. Skye had been a particularly nervous bride, and she really wanted things to smoothly for her.

"Yeah, Grant’s just trying to find a parking spot."

Jemma felt relieved.

"Great, then. I have the suits here. Just go into the fitting rooms at the back to change and I’ll go grab the seamstress in case you need any adjustments."

She gave Fitz, and Bruce their suits and was turning around to grab Tony’s when the chime on the door went off again. Without looking up, she passed out Tony and Steve’s suits and grabbed Grant’s.

When she finally did look up, to pass the suit to the last member of the group. And then she nearly dropped it.

Fortunately, though, she didn’t. She couldn’t imagine how embarrassing it would have been to drop the suit on the newcomer, in addition to the drinks she spilled last night.


	19. Ward/Simmons (Library AU- 2/23/14)

She’s trying to focus on her equations, she’s supposed to meet Fitz after her next class to got over their proposed lab experiment, so she needs to finish these in the next hour. But it’s damn near impossible when the girl one table over is chattering away to the tall, dark haired guy next to her. She’s been glaring at them on and off for the last 15 minutes, but they haven’t even noticed her. God, she hates obnoxious couples in the library. At least they haven’t started having sex in the stacks, like that one couple did last semester.

Reaching the end of patience, she loudly slams her bag onto the table next to her. That gets his attention at least.

"Skye, maybe you should tell me more about this over coffee," she hears him say to her as he quickly closes his laptop and throws it into a black backpack. Minutes later, they’re on their way out the door. She can finally work in peace.

Without the distraction, Jemma can finally focus on her work. She finishes with 15 minutes to spare and considers grabbing a coffee before heading to her lecture. She’s been trying to cut down, but she had a late night and Professor Hand is a notorious hard-ass who won’t appreciate a student falling asleep in class.

She’s grabbing the last of her books when a paper coffee cup is placed down in front of her. There’s a post-it note attached to it that reads ‘Sorry about my sister.’

Jemma looks up to find the guy from earlier standing on the other side of the table.

Suddenly, Jemma’s not too bothered about the prospect of being distracted from her work.


	20. Ward/Simmons (Trapped in a Bank During a Robbery AU- 2/23/14)

All she wanted to do was deposit her reimbursement check from the lab. That was supposed to take fifteen minutes tops. Instead, she’s seated on the floor with the twenty other people who were in the building when the gun went off. This was not at all how her day was supposed to go.

So when another gun goes off fifteen minutes after they’ve all been rounded off, Jemma’s first though is the gunman has started killing hostages. Fortunately, that’s not the case.

"It’s okay everyone," the man who had been sitting across from her announces, "I’m with the FBI. Someone notify the police, they’ll want to take statements."


	21. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 2/28/14)

"Okay, next time there's the off chance of something puking out thick, black, smoke, could you maybe make a sign or something?"

"Really Skye, if I had known this was a possibility, I would have warned you. I am not an expert in alien biology. Now could you just help me turn him onto his side? I’m not really sure if the smoke will harm him at all, so we’d best be on the safe side."

"Fine, but I get to take pictures of this, it’s prime blackmail material."


	22. Ward/Simmons (First Line Promp- 3/1/14)

Ward was ready to call it a night when he heard metal crashing against metal, breaking glasses, and Simmons' softer, "Oh, dear."

He sprinted out of the training room and into the lab to find her staring at her hands, a pile of broken equipment at her feet.

"Oh Agent Ward, I didn’t realize anyone else was still awake," she startled.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concerned.

"Yes, it’s just a small scratch. I just hope none of the glass got into it."

"Let me see."

He has enough field training to look at a small cut. Gently, he pulled her over to the cabinet where she kept her medical supplies and grabbed some gauze and antiseptic. Maneuvering her hand so that he could see properly, he began to clean off the small amount of blood pooling on her finger.

He told himself that it took so long because he was being thorough and wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no glass in the wound, but maybe he just liked having her so close.


	23. Fitz/Skye (Earflaps- 3/23/14)

**Earflaps**

"Are those earflaps?" Skye asks, trying to hold back a laugh.

Fitz glares angrily at his shoes, trying to force back the blush he knows is overtaking his face.

"Yes, I lost a bet and now Simmons is making me wear this stupid hat my mum sent me."

"Well I think it’s cute," she tells him, pulling it off his head and putting it on her own. "What do you think?"

Of course, it looks much cuter on her, but he’s pretty sure she’d look good in a bin bag.

"Hideous," he tells her jokingly, because he’s never been particularly good with feelings.


	24. Ward/Simmons (Break- 3/23/14)

"At this point it feels like you’re trying to get injured," she tells him, as her hands gently prod at his rib cage.

"I promise, I don’t actually enjoy getting thrown into metal railings. Besides, this isn’t even that bad."

He won’t tell her wear it hurts most, insisting that he’s just a little bruised, but judging by the times he’s noticeably flinched, she’d say he’s cracked at least of his ribs. She cleans up the superficial wounds and tells him to get some rest, knowing he likely won’t listen and hoping he isn’t needed for anything too taxing in the near future.

Late that night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, she finds him in the kitchen, his back turned to her as he stuffs ice cubs into a plastic bag.

"Not that bad?" she asks, more amused than she probably should be.

He jumps, then drops the bag to the floor as he reaches for his pained ribcage.

"Nothing a little ice won’t take care of," he glares at the cubes scattered across the floor, "or would have, if you hadn’t creeped up one me."

She feels a bit sorry for him now. He’s clearly in a lot of pain, even if he won’t admit it.

"You wait here, I’ve got cold packs in the lab. Then I’ll clean up, you’ll just aggravate your ribs if you bend over."


	25. Skye & Jemma (Manscaping- 3/23/14)

"I don’t trust Hand. I think she’s got it out for us. I mean, she was going to let Fitz and Ward die."

Jemma looks up from her microscope, to see Skye standing in the just inside the lab doors, visibly angry.

"And she’s back at the Hub, where we will hopefully never have to deal with her again."

"I don’t think so. I think we’ll see her again. You shot Sitwell, that’s not going to go over well with her."

Skye has a point there. As much as Jemma had been trying to pretend that hadn’t happened, there was no way there wasn’t going to be some kind of backlash for shooting a high ranking SHIELD agent, even if the gun only released dendrotoxin.

"And what exactly do you propose we do about her? I’m not shooting anyone again."

"I don’t know yet. But I’m going to figure something out. Until then, we need a safe word."

"A safe word? Skye, she isn’t here. I think you’re taking this spy stuff too seriously… again."

"What part of ‘she was going to let Fitz and Ward be blown to smithereens’ are you not getting? We need to take her seriously."

Jemma is certain they’re never going to need a safe word, but she’s already learned that, when it comes to Skye, sometimes it’s easier to just play along.

"Alright then, what did you have in mind?"

"Manscaping," Skye replies, her voice even and completely serious.

"Manscaping?"

"Manscaping," Skye repeats, before bounding out of the room

Jemma just shakes her head and goes back to work, fairly positive she’ll never actually have to use the word.


	26. Ward/Simmons (Earring- 3/23/14)

"We could call Skye?" Jemma suggested tentatively.

"And she’d take photos of this to use as blackmail," was Ward’s surly response.

"Do we have any other options?"

"Fine."

Which is how they ended up in Coulson’s office a half an hour later, trying to explain that it was really just a silly accident that Jemma’s earring got caught in the weave of his pants.


	27. Fitz/Skye (Shampoo- 3/23/14)

It takes him two weeks to figure it out. At first he swears he’s losing his mind, that he have bought the shampoo bottle earlier than he remembers. The he thinks it must be Jemma playing a prank on him, but frankly Jemma’s pranks are always better than stealing his shampoo.

It isn’t until he using the shower right after Skye that he notices the mint smell of his own shampoo, which is odd, because Skye’s shampoo usually smells like coconuts.

He considers confronting her, but there’s something about the thought of her using his shampoo, of her smelling like him, that really appeals to him.

The next time he has to chance to buy some, he makes sure to get the bulk size bottle.


	28. Ward/Simmons (Ring- 3/23/14)

Ring (Ward/Simmons)

"It’s a… ring," she says, surprised. "I’m flattered and all, but considering the fact that we’ve only slept together once and you weren’t exactly in the happiest place when that happened, this is all a bit–"

"It was my grandmother’s. My younger brother sent to me, apparently she wanted me to have it."

"Oh." She really should have thought of that first. Him proposing was completely preposterous.

"I just…" he struggles to find the right words, "I don’t feel like I deserve it. She loved that ring, loved that my grandfather saved up for so long to buy it for her. And I couldn’t even make it to her funeral."

"Grant Ward," she looks him straight in the eye, "If everything that you’ve told me about your grandmother is true, then she was a wonderful woman who loved you so much. And she was so proud of all that you’ve done… even when you couldn’t tell her exactly what it is that you do. She knew you were protecting people. And she would absolutely understand that you couldn’t come to her funeral, and she would never hold that against you."

"I know, but I can’t shake it."

Her arms wrap lightly around his shoulders, and when he doesn’t pull away she pulls him in close.

"Maybe not now, you can’t. You’ve always loved beating yourself up about things. But one day you’ll forgive yourself for this," she doesn’t mention all the other things she hopes he’ll forgive himself for, "and you will cherish that ring."

They stay like that for a while, embracing in the small confines of his bunk. And when the emotional and physical exhaustion of the last couple of weeks finally gets to him, she gently lays him down on his bed and pulls the blanket over him.

It’s hard caring about a person who feels they need to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, but when he lets her see this vulnerable side, she always remembers that it’s worth it.


	29. Ward/Simmons (Monsters- 3/23/14)

Even as a child, Jemma Simmons was much too practical and scientifically minded to be afraid of monsters. In fact, there wasn’t much she was afraid of.

Until she stepped out of the relative safety of her lab.

Until she saw exactly how many strong, smart people there were who wanted to cause destruction.

Until she saw how all the best intentions could still put your life in danger.

Sometimes it’s almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning, knowing how terribly wrong things could go. She thinks about hurtling through the sky towards death, or of the bullet wounds gushing out blood from Skye’s stomach, and it’s almost too much to handle.

But then she remembers that she can outsmart these people, she can undo some of the damage they’ve caused.

She remembers there are people who will always have her back, and a man who will always be there to catch her, no matter how high she falls from.

And that makes all the uncertainty bearable.


	30. Fitz/Skye- (Sick 3/23/14)

"No don’t leave me here alone," Skye whined as Fitz got up from his spot on the floor next to her bed.

"I’m just using the bathroom," he told her.

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t press any further.

When he came back, he found Jemma standing next to Skye’s bed, holding a glass of water.

"No way. If I keep drinking all the water you give me, you’re going to have to put in a catheter." Whatever expression Jemma made must have scared Skye, because she added, "There’s no way in hell I’m letting you give me a catheter. It’s just a fever."

That’s when he thought it would be best to step in.

"Jemma, why don’t you go analyze those samples you took earlier. I can look after Skye."

"But–"

"No buts, I can take care of her. Plenty of water, make sure she eats, no strenuous activity, acetaminophen every four hours."

"Fine. But I’ll be checking in when I’m done."

When he could hear Jemma’s footsteps on the metal steps down to the lab, he turned to Skye.

"I assume you have something worth watching on your laptop."

"I just downloaded this French film that got really good reviews."

He stared blankly at her.

"Or we could re-watch The Fellowship of the Ring."

"Scoot over. I need to sit down. But don’t you dare breathe on me."


	31. Ward/Simmons (Sick- 3/23/14)

When she stuck her head into the hallway, she really hadn’t been expecting to see Grant Ward sitting on the floor outside her door.

"No," was all he said to her.

"But I have so much work to do. We need to know what’s inside those vials."

"And it can wait until you’re not in danger of vomiting all over the lab."

"I am not in danger of any such thing," she replied, indignant.

"Skye says you were sick all over–"

"Can we please stop talking about vomit? It’s making my stomach churn."

"All the more reason for you to go back to bed and wait this one out. You haven’t even changed our of your pajamas."

"But I haven’t eaten in hours, I’ll be fine."

"Coulson says you’re not allowed out of your room, until you’ve slept and proven you can keep down a meal," he tone was final, there would be no arguing her way past him.

She glared at him before slamming the door and retreated towards her bed. She was out cold before her head even hit the pillow.


	32. Fitz/Skye (Popcorn- 3/23/14)

"You ready?" Skye called from the doorway of the lab.

"Just have to make one more adjustment and… there we are," Fitz responded as he tightened the last few screws on the project in front of them.

"Great. I’ve got everything set up. I even made popcorn."

"And you’re sure Coulson’s okay with this."

"Yes, he’s even coming to watch. I think everyone is. He says he’s just glad you want to test it here and not in the field."

"It would work perfectly fine in the field," he tells her.

"Yeah, but I think he just feels safer if we test large explosives on SHIELD grounds first."


	33. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 3/27/14)

Coulson had a better chance in a court martial than Skye had in a civilian court, so he may have taken more blame than his participation warranted.

No one was surprised that he would do this, except Skye herself, who was still getting used to the family she’d recently gaining.

After SHIELD agents had escorted Coulson from the Bus, and Agent May had given them strict orders to remain there and await further instruction, it was Jemma who found Skye using the holotable to search through whatever files her low-level access could get her.

"You know, Fitz is not going to be pleased that you’re using this without his supervision," she joked, trying to ease the tension that was coming off of Skye in waves.

"Yeah, yeah, two semesters holographic engineering. Save me the speech. If I find something that can save Coulson’s ass, he’s not going to have a reason to be angry with me."

"Skye," Jemma’s voice softened, "he’s going to be fine. Fury moved heaven and earth to save Coulson’s life, he’s not going to let one mistake ruin the man’s life."

"My mistake. My big mistake."

Jemma tentatively puts a hand on Skye’s shoulder, in an attempt to comfort her. Skye shrugs it off.

"I do not have time for the pity party."

Jemma straightens and gently shoves Skye out of the way.

"Fine, but I have higher clearance and better familiarity with the holotable. Tell me what you’re looking for."


	34. May, Jemma & Skye (First Line Prompt- 3/27/14)

"Skye, what are you doing with that hammer?"

"Nothing apparently," Skye retorted, sounding annoyed.

"You didn’t actually think you could pick up Mjölnir, did you?" Jemma asks her. "Only Thor can do that."

"No, I did not actually think I could pick up Mo-nee–"

"Mjölnir," May corrects her.

"Sorry," Skye waves her hands in mock apology.

"It was forged by dwarves from a dying star and enchanted so that only someone worthy can pick it up," May elaborates. "You were never going to be able to lift it."

"Someone’s a bigger Thor fangirl than we imagined," Skye mutters under her breath to Jemma.


	35. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 3/27/14)

"How in the hell did this happen?"

"Umm… well… you see," Jemma tried to come up with a plausible excuse.

"Did you not feel that sharp turn May took with the plane?" Ward asked him. "We lost balance and knocked it off the bench. It was an accident."

"Sure," Fitz said, although he obviously didn’t believe a word of it. "And how exactly did Jemma’s shirt get unbuttoned? And the half open condom package by your foot?"

Neither of them could come up with a good excuse for that.


	36. Jemma, Skye, Fitz & Ward (First Line Prompt- 3/29/14)

"While you're there you have to wear your spacesuit at all times."

"Spacesuit? We’re not using the fancy science name anymore?"

"No Ward, we are not using the fancy science name anymore. I can see you and Skye roll your eyes every time we use it," Jemma responds.

Skye suddenly becomes incredibly interested in her shoelaces and Fitz looks up from the adjustments he’s making to Skye’s suit.

"If you’d like, I can describe in detail the way you’ll struggle painfully to breathe before losing consciousness and asphyxiating," Fitz says, his left eyebrow lifted in challenge.

"Fitz, stop scaring them," Jemma replies at the same time Skye said, "Like I’m not nervous enough already."

It saves Ward from having to come up with a witty retort.


	37. Fitz & Skye (First Line Prompt- 3/29/14)

Not that it probably isn't obvious, but I think it needs asking anyway. Why is there frosting in the specimen

Fitz starts cursing under his breath at this, his accent getting even stronger.

"Jemma doesn’t seem to care about the differentiation between specimen fridge and food fridge," he tells her when he pulls himself together. "That’s leftover from the cupcakes she made."

"Can I still eat it, then?" Skye asks.

Apparently the question bothers him.

"One day you are all going to get sick because Jemma doesn’t respect scientific boundaries. And I am going to laugh at you."

Maybe that day will come soon, but right now his angry, red face is making Skye stifle a laugh.

"It’s funny until you go to grab your lunch and there’s a dead cat lying next to it," he all but yells.

"I’m going to leave now, before you tell the cat story. Again."


	38. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 3/29/14)

"Why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

She glares at him, her right hand grabbing the edge of the towel to make sure it stays securely on.

"Oh right." Ward steps out of the room and closes the door before asking again. "Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?"

"Because I work on a plane and while I can secure everything when I’m not working on it, I cannot secure everything that is out on my table, regardless of how corrosive it may be," she sounds frustrated.

"And how corrosive was it?" he asks, curious.

"It destroyed my lab coat and half my shirt in the time it took me to unbutton and remove it. Fortunately, it only left a small burn on my skin and my jeans are unscathed. But that shirt was damn expensive."

He allows himself a minute to picture her in the lab in just her bra, before chastising himself for it. She could have been seriously hurt.

"But you’re okay?" he double checks.

"I am fine," she responds as she opens the door, clad in a different floral shirt and dark jeans. "And now I have to go clean up my mess."

As she walks down the hall, he allows his eyes to drift down the back of her legs. They look great in her jeans, but they were even better when she was just in her towel.


	39. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 3/29/14)

"If this is the way things are going to be, then I can't do this anymore."

He stares at her blankly, like he has no idea what she’s talking about.

"I can’t keep sneaking around with you, just to have you behave like an ass in front of the rest of the team. Skye wants to know if I think you getting shot at last week could have affected your brain and Fitz is trying to convince me to help him pipe hallucinogens into your bunk. You’re supposed to be the master spy, but you’re acting ridiculous."

When he doesn’t respond again, she turns and walks out of the room.

She makes polite small-talk with him during dinner, but willingly subjects herself to another one of Skye’s theories about Director Fury’s whereabouts rather than talk to him any longer than necessary.

Which is why he’s forced to wait until the rest of the team has turned in for the night to approach her.

He can see the light shining underneath her door when he knocks on it.

"Go away, Ward. I’m sleeping."

He regrets trying to impress her with his ability to recognize the rest of the team only by their footsteps, because apparently she taught herself to do the same thing.

"With the light on?"

No response.

"I can say this out here if you’d prefer, but if anyone wakes up…"

That gets her to open the door quickly.

"What do you want?" she asks, the annoyance clear in her voice.

"I’m sorry."

"That’s it?" She’s not impressed.

"I’m sorry. You’ve got me completely on edge and I don’t want to fuck things up this time like I fucked them up with May." It’s probably not the best idea to bring that situation up right now, but it’s relevant and she’s never seemed bothered by it before. "I’m sorry I’ve been acting like an asshole, I’m sorry I’m forcing you to sneak around like this, I’m sorry for not saying this sooner, I’m sorry–"

She cuts him off with a quick kiss.

"I’m sorry we have to be up in five hours, because I would really like to continue this. I guess it will have to wait," she tells him.


	40. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 4/21/14)

"Excuse me, but what are you wearing?"

Immediately, Jemma’s face turns about a dozen different shade of red.

"Oh Skye, I didn’t see you there. I was… um… doing laundry and I got a stain on my shirt, so I threw it in too. And Agent Ward’s shirt was laying nearby, so I put it on to cover myself up while I ran to my room for a new one."

"You were doing laundry at 5:30 in the morning?" Skye is skeptical, but Jemma thinks she might actually get away with this one.

"My internal clock is still on New York time, so it’s more like 8:30."

Honestly, Jemma’s just happy Skye hasn’t asked her why she’s not wearing anything on the lower half of her body. And that she had the foresight to put underwear on before sneaking back to her room.

Of course, that’s the moment that Ward chooses to step out of his bunk, her navy button-down and coordinating red tie clutched in his hand. Skye takes one look at him and a grin spreads across her face.

"You two are so busted," she whispers, and Jemma can swear she skips down the hall to her own bunk.


	41. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 4/21/14)

If they wanted to keep this discreet, they definitely could have planned it better.

She thinks there’s a part of her that wants to get caught, honestly. She deserves it.

But she doesn’t get caught. Everyone is too wrapped up in their own betrayal to even notice. When she disappears, they assume she’s out dealing with her grief privately.

And she is, in a way. After all, the first stage of grief and loss is denial.

And they sneak away from their respective camps, to a seedy motel, an abandoned barn, an obscenely expensive hotel suite, or, one time, a church after everyone has gone home (even Jemma, a woman of science, feels blasphemous for that one), she can deny what he’s done for a brief stretch of time.

She always leaves feeling guilty, though. Whether she wakes up to find him him gone, or sneaks out while he’s still sleeping it off, she hates herself for what she’s done, for the family she’s betrayed.

She promises herself that next time she won’t go, or she’ll bring a weapon with her (she looses sleep one night, after leaving him, wondering whether she’d have a better chance of getting away with stabbing or shooting). She even goes so far as to concoct a slow acting poison, one she knows she could easily inject him with in their post-coital haze.

She never does, though.


	42. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 4/21/14)

She was suddenly reminded of a line from a childhood book; it had truly been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

She had him right there, lying down across her lab table, completely vulnerable.

And she trusted him. She didn’t just let him walk away unscathed, she put him back together and wished him well.

She hadn’t even finished cleaning her equipment when the alarm sounded, when Coulson’s voice sounded in her comm, telling her Ward worked for Hydra, that Ward had killed Agent Hand and countless others.

He had betrayed them all and fooled her with nothing more than a smile and a few concerned words.

Jemma had always thought she was a good judge of character, apparently she was wrong.


	43. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 4/21/14)

"Is it true? Are you a killer?" she whispered, swallowing hard as she looked down the barrel of a gun, hoping the answer was no.

"He saved me. I owe him."

She counts herself lucky that he doesn’t look her in the eye as he says it. She doesn’t think she wants to see what’s there now, what’s probably always been there, just hidden from their view.

"If you only knew what he got me out of, Simmons. You couldn’t even imagine what I went through before he got to me."

And she can’t. He hasn’t shared that part of himself with her, with any of them. And again she counts herself lucky. If he had, it would make this so much worse. If he had, maybe she wouldn’t be able to lift the gun, to aim as best as she can, and to empty the cartridge into his chest.

She knows this will haunt her, more than the memory of falling, more than the fear of her body hitting the water, more than the memory of him shooting Agent Koenig.

But she knows she’s done the right thing. She knows she’s the only one on the team who can take care of this without being to destroyed by it. Everyone else is already too burdened by his betrayal. Coulson feels he’s failed a son, May’s holding herself responsible for not seeing through him from the start, Fitz hates himself for not sticking to his instinct, and Skye is questioning everything the team had ever brought her.

None of them deserve to have his death on their hands as well. Not that she does, but she knows this is what she’s good at. She can take the burden and do the hard thing. And she has.


	44. Fitz/Skye (First Line Prompt- 4/21/14)

Fitz/Skye

"I'm going to need you to walk me through every part of this plan."

"Okay Fitz, listen very carefully. The plan is to get the virus into their mainframe and not die while doing it."

He gapes at her for an instant, before steeling himself. Skye swears she can actually see the determination roll down his body, the hardening of his facial features, straightening of his posture, and clenching of his fists.

He pushes one of the ICERS across the table to her before sliding another into the waistband of his jeans. It takes him seconds to open the box in front of him and use the remote stashed in his pocket to arm the modified dwarves lying inside it.

He briefly rests a hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she allows herself to enjoy the comfort of it. But before she can really appreciate it, he’s off and running towards the elevators. They have no other options; this has to work.


	45. Fitz/Skye (Bright Pink Handcuffs- 4/27/14)

The sight of Skye leaning over him in that black lace bra he loved was almost enough to distract him from the cool metal being wrapped around his left wrist.

"What is that for?" he asks, slightly panicked as he looks over at the handcuffs now securing him to the post of the bed he and Skye have spent the last two nights sharing.

"Fun," Skye replies with a glint in her eyes that he wouldn’t describe as evil, but certainly mischievous.

"They’re pink," he says, as though maybe she hasn’t noticed.

"Yes, I noticed that."

"Why are they pink?"

As far as he’s concerned, pink handcuffs aren’t sexy. Pink handcuffs are something you give little girls to play with. Although he can’t imagine why you would give a small child handcuffs to begin with…

"Because that’s what I could find, and I thought you’d like that better than me stealing them from the cop that pulled us over on the highway."

She had a point there. Pink handcuffs were way sexier than the possibility of jail time.


	46. Fitz/Skye (Brownies- 4/27/14)

"Tell me again what you put in these, Jemma?"

"They’re perfectly safe."

"She is dancing on the bar."

"Which she’s done completely sober, in case you’ve forgotten."

Jemma has a point there, but Fitz can’t shake the terrible feeling that at any moment Coulson and May will return from their meeting with Fury and lose it at the sight of what the younger agents have done with the lounge. It’s been 2 months since Triplett joined their technically non-existent team, and Fitz still doesn’t completely trust him to watch the monitors he set up earlier.

"Come on Fitz, live a little. You’re only young once," Skye practically screams at him, jumping off the bar and leaning over him.

He’s distracted by her proximity (and probably whatever chemicals Jemma put in those damn brownies), so when she pulls him out of his seat and drags him on top of the bar, all he really notices is that her skin is really, really warm. Like a heat lamp, or one of him prototypes, after they’ve been running for a while (but not quite at the point that they explode).

It’s not until her hands are under his shirt and running her hands along his back that he even remembers Jemma and Trip are still in the room. He blushes red and looks over at the couch Jemma was sitting on. Suspiciously, she’s not there and Trip seems to have disappeared as well. Fitz huffs to himself about irresponsible specialists who abandon their posts.

But then Skye’s lips find their way to his neck, smiling against his skin. He decides the lecture on commitment to the team can wait until tomorrow morning.


	47. Fitz/Skye (One For Luck- 4/27/14)

"One for luck?"

It wasn’t even funny the first time, but at least that time they were alone. Now she was doing it in front of the whole team and Fitz was fairly certain Coulson was going to lecture him on sexual harassment.

"Skye, you’re making that up."

"No, I swear a guy in Budapest told me it was true."

"Why were you even talking to some guy in Budapest about Scotland."

"Well, I was dodging an ex-fling from when I was in Zagreb, who I told I had an identical twin, only she was raised by our mother in Scotland. István was more than happy to help out."

"You mean István was totally happy to try and get in your pants."

"The key word there was ‘try.’ Besides, you’ve never been to Hungary, how could possibly know."

"Skye, I swear there is no way it’s a Hungarian tradition to pinch a Scot’s ass for good luck."

"Maybe you just have a nice ass, then."


	48. Fitz/Skye (Photography- 4/27/14)

After all those months on the bus, it’s hard for Skye to adjust to sleeping in her van again. It’s about the same size as her bunk was, but the sounds of the city aren’t as reassuring as Fitz’s heavy breathing, or Jemma’s tendency to talk in her sleep. Skye misses the Bus. She misses her team.

It’s been months since they parted ways. Ward is dead, and his betrayal and manipulation way heavy on her mind. She swears it would be easier to deal with if they were all together. But Coulson told them they need to lie low for a while. Fury has plans for them, but it’s going to take a while to get things together.

Why that meant they all needed to separate while they wait, it beyond Skye.

She doesn’t sleep as well as she used to. She won’t admit it, but she’s scared that one day a Hydra agent, one of the many still out there, will knock on her door. With a gun or a bomb or something else terrifying.

So she’s taken to staying up at night, looking at the team photos she has saved on her phone. She’s cropped Ward’s face out of nearly all of them, and deleted the ones that make her the saddest.

Tonight she’s looking at bunch of photos taken at one of SHIELD’s storage facilities, and low-level warehouse in the middle of nowhere that didn’t fall into the hands of Hydra. Fitz and Simmons had just finished putting the finishing touches on a dendrotoxin bomb that had the power to knock out an entire room. She and Fitz were on the roof of the facility, getting ready to test it and see how far it dispersed without walls to keep it in.

Jemma was below in a ridiculous mask, taking notes on dispersal patterns, while Coulson and May watched from inside.

As it turned out, Jemma’s mask wasn’t quite as secure as she’d thought, and she and Fitz had to run down twelve flights of stairs to check on her after she’d passed out.

Jemma had insisted that was the best sleep she’d gotten since SHIELD fell.

Jemma wondered where the hell Fitz and Simmons were.

She’d just put the phone down and crawled into her makeshift bed when it chirped out the tone that indicated text messages. Only four other people had her number.

She hoped it was good news.

The message was brief.

"Denver, Colorado  
Happy’s Garage and Bikeshop  
Miss you  
LF”

It might of been three in the morning, but that didn’t stop Skye from rushing to the driver’s seat and plugging Denver into her GPS.

It had been too long since she’d seen him.


	49. Fitz/Skye (Fear of Tomorrow- 4/27/14)

When it’s all said and done, she finds him in the lab. It’s well past three in the morning and they should both be in bed. She’s been tossing and turning for hours, so she figures maybe a little time in the training room will exhaust her.

He’s just sitting there. He’s not tinkering with anything, not cleaning up, just sitting on a stool at one of the work benches, staring at the disassembled ICER sitting in front of him.

He doesn’t look up when the door whooshes open. Or when she leans over the table and asks if he’s okay. He doesn’t flinch when she puts tentatively lays a hand on his shoulder, but at least he speaks.

"I never wanted to leave the lab."

She doesn’t know what to say to this. Sure, she hadn’t expected to recruited by a secret government organization only to have that organization violently destroyed. But everything she’d found had been better than anything she’d expected, even after Ward’s betrayal.

"We saved the world. Kind of."

She doesn’t think that will offer him much comfort, but she can’t think of anything better to say.

"Now what?" he asks, more to himself than her. She doesn’t have an answer to that either. Not really.

"We’ll figure it out, Fitz. Together."

Finally his body moves. It’s nothing huge, just his neck turning to look her in the eye, but it’s a small comfort. Maybe she did help.

"Okay," he tells her. She thinks they might be alright.


	50. Ward/Simmons (Car Breaks Down AU- 5/18/14)

The never-ending silence makes her want to scream. She should have never taken his offer for a ride. Skye had sworn up and down that her friend wasn’t an axe murderer, but she hadn’t mentioned that he was completely dull and anti-social.

She’d just gotten to the point where she was contemplating the horrors of asking him to pull over at the next exit so she could find a bathroom to use (she didn’t actually have to go, she just needed to stretch her legs and possible hear some human voices) when the car engine starts smoking. Soon their sputtering to a stop, and he looks worried.

"Wait here," he tells her as he steps out of the car, and if she wasn’t worried about the prospect of being stuck with him even longer, she’d be overjoyed that he’s finally spoken.

He opens the hood and she loses sight of him. After 5 minutes of staring at the large expanse of nothingness outside the car windows, she gets out herself. At least she’ll be able to stretch her legs.

He’s standing in front of the car, with his arms crossed, just glaring at the engine.

"You have no idea what happened to it, do you?"

He visibly reddens.

"No."

"We should call a tow, then."

He sighs, clearly not pleased to have a situation he can’t fix.

Jemma grabs her phone out of her pocket and does a quick search for a towing company. This isn’t the first time she’s been glad she let Skye modify her phone. She probably wouldn’t be able to get internet access out here otherwise. She’s told it’ll be about half hour until a truck can be here.

She relayed the message to Ward, who sighs again and takes a seat behind the driver’s wheel again, leaving the door open. Wordlessly, she joins him.

She’s checked her phone at least a dozen times in the last three minutes before he actually says something. At first she swears she’s imagining it.

"So, what’s in Boston?"

"My friend Fitz. He’s in Uni… erm… college at MIT. Every year he does a big Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of us ex-pats and other people with nowhere to spend the day. You?"

"I have to consult at a storage facility in Maine next week. I figured I might as well make the trip a little early, maybe get a little hiking in."

"So you’re spending Thanksgiving alone?" she asks.

"Yeah. I’m not one for crowds."

"You should join us," she says, and she can’t believe the words are coming out of her mouth.

"That’s okay. I wouldn’t want to impose."

"Nonsense. The more the merrier," she insists.

"I’ll think about it. At this rate we’re not getting to Boston until tomorrow anyway."

"Lovely. I hope we don’t have to stay anywhere too seedy."

"I think this is going to be one of those beggars can’t be choosers kind of things."

This time, she’s the one who sighs deeply, not looking forward to the rest of the night.


	51. Fitz/Skye (Library AU- 5/18/14)

Her back aches, and her legs are stiff, and the code on her screen blurs in and out, but she’s so close to done. In less than an hour she’ll be able to e-mail the assignment to her professor and then she can head back to her apartment and crash. She swears she won’t put her work off until the night before ever again (but she’s been swearing that for the last two years).

Shaking her head to dislodge the sleepiness, she focuses back in on her laptop. She’s almost in the zone when someone takes a seat across from her. He lays out a bunch of different papers on the table, and puts a paper bag just to the left of them. Opening the bag, he pulls out the most delicious sandwich she’s ever smelled in her life.

Skye’s stomach grumbles. She had a terrible slice of pizza five hours ago, otherwise the only thing she’s had since sitting down at this table is five cups of coffee (and nine bathroom breaks).

She’s staring longingly at the sandwich when he clears his throat.

"Err… do you want some?" he offers, in a pleasant Scottish brogue.

"What’s in it?" she asks. At his point he could say anthrax and tacks and she’d still want a bite.

"Prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, and a hint of pesto aioli. My roommate will only make it for me during finals week. Which I think is ridiculous, because midterms are stressful, too."

"Mmmm," she practically moans.

He takes this as a yes, and pushes half of the sandwich across the table to her.

She takes a bite. It’s like heaven on a baguette (although that might just be the sleep deprivation talking, she really needs her 8-14 hours a day).

"So, my new best friend, what brings you to this lovely corner of the library?" she asks, not bothering to wait until she’s swallowed.

"Well, name is Fitz. And I have to turn these schematics," he gestures towards the papers in front of him "into something usable in the next 24 hours."

"Good luck with that," she says, turning back to her computer screen.

It takes her three hours to finish the rest of her assignment. But that’s just because Fitz is entertaining her with horror stories of the time his roommate Jemma left a cat liver in their fridge.


	52. Ward/Simmons (Kissing Booth AU- 5/29/14)

"Ugh, remind me why I’m doing this again? I can’t believe I willingly signed up for something so juvenile," Jemma asks Skye as they approach the pink and red striped booth.

"Because Darcy said you had a stick up your ass and you’d never agree to do it. Also the alcohol," her friend says absently, eyes searching the crowd for the mystery man she’d met at a party last week (Jemma had missed that one, instead working in the lab until midnight before gorging on frozen pizza and passing out on the couch).

"Right," Jemma said with a roll of her eyes. "And I don’t have a stick up my ass."

When Skye doesn’t immediately respond in agreement, Jemma grabs her friend lightly by the arm.

"You don’t think I have a stick up my ass do you?" she asks.

"Only when it comes to the proper way to the load the dishwasher for maximum efficiency," her awful approximation of Jemma’s accent would be offensive, if not for the ridiculous face Skye is pulling.

"Just because your content to waste water running the machine every day doesn’t mean I— shit."

Skye’s head whips around towards Jemma, who is now frantically looking around for an escape route.

"What are you freaking out about?" Skye asks, almost immediately following her question with an, "Oh."

Jemma has stopped in her tracks and turned around, considering whether she can make a break for it without being spotted by anyone.

"He hasn’t seen me, has he?" she asks.

"Not only has he seen you, he’s practically drooling. Remind me to make you wear my clothes more often," Jemma can practically hear Skye’s smirk.

Why Darcy insisted she wear a skirt to stand behind a booth makes absolutely no sense to Jemma.

"Do you remember what happened last time I borrowed your clothes?" Jemma whispers pointedly.

"In your attempts to gracefully detangle yourself from a heated make out session with loverboy over there, you tripped over my heels and flashed half of the ROTC. Also me. At least I made you wear cute underwear."

He cannot see me like this. He cannot watch me make a fool out of myself yet again.

"Can I just point out that, if Grant is hanging out by the kissing booth minutes before you are about to represent the Association for Women in Science, he was probably more impressed by the lacy undies than he was horrified by you showing them to all your friends. Also, he’s on his way over. Bye."

And with that, Skye is halfway across the Student Union in a matter of seconds.

"Jemma," she can hear a familiar voice call from right behind her.

She turns around and nearly collides with Grant Ward’s solid torso.


	53. Ward/Simmons (Animal Shelter AU- 5/30/14)

"But she’s so cute. How could you say no to this face?" Jemma asks, cradling the cat in her arms.

"Very easily. We agreed on a pet dog. Not a cat."

"Because you’re afraid of cats," she teases.

"I am not afraid of cats. I would just feel bad when I woke up one morning to discover it had eaten your face."

"Ugh, you really need to stop listening to Skye’s conspiracy theories. Cats are wonderful. I had one growing up and it never ate anyone’s face."

"High standards. Anyway, we agreed on a dog."

"Fine, to the dogs then."

Of course, Jemma finds herself attached to every dog they see.

"No, we cannot take the pit bull and the golden retriever. There isn’t enough room in the apartment."

Jemma pouts, but moves on.

It isn’t until they reach the last row of dogs that they find him. He’s resting on his side when they walk up, but the moment he spots Grant he gets to his feet and starts wagging his tail.

"I think he likes you," Jemma says and Grant leans over to pet him.

"Well he has excellent taste then."

She crinkles her nose.

"You’re okay."

He laughs at her and slings an arm around her shoulder.

"So what do you think? Should we take home," he looks at the name card outside of the dog’s pen "Buddy?"

The dog’s head is popped up and he’s sniffing at Grant’s free hand.

"I think it would be a shame no to."


	54. Ward/Simmons (Speed Dating AU- 5/31/14)

"It’s two hours of your life, Jemma. Just do it."

"Skye, stop trying to force her. If she’s not ready than she’s not ready. Besides, how is she supposed to find someone based on a five minute conversation."

"I’m sorry we can’t all stumble upon gorgeous men with sexy accents while we’re out in the middle of nowhere, Jane. Jemma needs to stop moping at get back out into the world."

"Well, we’re here, so it’s too late to back out now. And personally, I think you should go just to shut the two of them up."

"No one asked you, Fitz."

Jemma quickly opened the door and got out of the car, hoping that her exit would calm the argument about to break out. She adjusted the collar of her blazer and walked into the restaurant, trying not to get too nervous about the giant Speed Dating sign out front.

Skye was right, she did need to get out. But Jane was right too, there was no way she was going to be able to tell if she was compatible with someone based off a five minute date. Fitz was just wrong, nothing in the world was going to stop Skye and Darcy from arguing. She just hoped they weren’t going to wait in the car until she was done.

The first three dates seemed to take way longer than the allotted 5 minutes. The first guy kept staring at her chest, the second wouldn’t stop talking about the basketball game he was missing, and the third started off their conversation with a comment about how English accents always made women sound smarter than they actually were.

So when the fourth man took a seat across from her, her hopes weren’t particularly high. Even though his cheekbones certainly were.

"I’m Grant," he introduced himself with a firm handshake.

"Jemma," she replies. "What do you do for a living."

"I work in security, and on the weekends I give skydiving lessons."

Her ears perk up at the mention of skydiving.

"I’ve always wanted to go skydiving. I’m afraid of heights and that just seems like the best way to get over it."

She’s only ever told Fitz about this, and his response was to list all the ways she could get injured or die in the process.

Grant laughs.

"That’s certainly one way. Although I would start a bit smaller. Maybe with bungee jumping. That way you have the cord guaranteed to catch you when you fall."

"That sounds fantastic."

"I actually know a place about a half an hour away. I think it would make for a great first date."

Jemma wants to suggest that they leave right now and drive out there, before she chickens out. Instead she just grabs a pen out of her bag and scribbles her phone number on her cocktail napkin, before pushing it across the table towards Grant. She knows she’s supposed to go through the process at the end of the night, but she’s feeling spontaneous.

That spontaneity is rewarded when she gets into Skye’s van at the end of the night. She’s just done up her seatbelt when her phone starts ringing. She doesn’t recognize the number.

"Hello," she says tentatively.

"Jemma, this is Grant. I was wondering if you’re free this weekend."


	55. Skye, Fitz & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 6/29/14)

About three things he was absolutely positive: first, Skye was an alien; second, there was a part of her — and he didn't know how dominant that part might be — that still sang with the bloodlust of her parents; and third, he was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with her.

Fitz, sighed and put the notebook back on the seat where Jemma had left it when she went to refill his water pitcher.

He knew she must have had a hard time coping with his absence while he recuperated, but this was a bit extreme. He’d read plenty of her fan fiction when they were in The Academy, and he’d even made an appearance in a Dr. Who fic as a bartender.

But the romantic lead in a real person fic? That was just too much. He was going to have to talk to her about getting out the lab more. And burning these pages.


	56. Ward & Simmons (First Line Prompt- 6/29/14)

"Please tell me you didn't eat the last slice of cake."

"I did not eat the last slice of cake," Ward responded, thankful he was a much better liar than Simmons and that he’d already thrown the paper plate he’d eaten off of into the garbage.

"That’s good. Although whoever did is in for a nasty surprise," Jemma says as she takes a seat across the kitchen table from him.

His eyebrows raised involuntarily, but that was the only part of his concern that showed.

"I was conducting an experiment with the mice using that secretion sample we took from the killer squid in Malta. The cake was for them."

"And what are the side-effects," he’s hoping for nausea or a headache, but knowing the substances Jemma works with that seems unlikely.

"Thus far, the mice are exhibiting erratic behavior similar to past experiments involving mice and LSD. However half of them have experienced increased heart-rates leading to cardiac arrest."

Ward’s face darkens. Death was the worst case scenario.

"Why would you put poisonous cake in the kitchen fridge? You have your own in the lab. There had better be an antidote," he’s not proud of himself for yelling at her, but considering the circumstances she deserves it.

He can feel his pulse speeding and he looks over at Jemma and she’s… laughing?

"I’m sorry," she chokes out over her laughter, "but it was impossible to resist. That’ll teach you to eat other people’s food."


	57. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 6/30/14)

Skye's face was right there, centimeters away, and Jemma didn't want to remember the last time her face had been so close to somebody else's.

She tries to push back the tears in her eyes, but this time she just can’t force them back.

It starts softly, then builds to full on sobbing as Jemma buries her face in Skye’s neck.

Tentatively, Skye reaches her arms around Jemma and slowly runs them up and down her back. The only time she’s ever seen Jemma close to this upset was when she contracted the Chitauri virus, and even that seems to pale in comparison to this. Fitz would know what to do, but if Fitz were here, this would be happening.

"It’s going to be okay," she murmurs. "We’ll get through this. He’ll be okay."

Jemma knows that Skye can’t really make that promise. Fitz’s injuries were severe, and only time will tell just how well he recovers. But her soft words are the biggest comfort she’s had since Fury told her Fitz was alive.


	58. Skye, Jemma & May (First Line Prompt- 7/2/14)

"Just don't look down."

"Really, Skye? Don’t look down?" Jemma doesn’t mean to give such a biting reply, but she’s too panicked to be polite.

Fortunately, May is able to remain calm in a crisis.

"Okay, brace yourself in the crook of those rocks," she instructs, her voice firm, but even.

Jemma shifts her weight backwards to comply.

"Now grab my arm with your right hand."

Jemma doesn’t want to, her mind is calculating a thousand different ways that doing so ends with her falling over the ledge, but she forces herself to follow through. May’s grip on her arm is comforting, but Jemma’s heart is still racing.

"Okay, now very quickly lean forward and grab Skye’s hand with your other hand and we’ll haul you up."

Steeling herself, Jemma takes a big breath and leans forward. Skye’s hand grabs onto her, just as steady and May’s. They manage to pull Jemma up just as the ground gives way underneath. She collapses on top of them in relief.

"Alright, May pushes herself to her feet. We’ve still got a couple miles to go, but it should be smooth sailing."

It rarely is, but at least they have each other’s back.


	59. Ward & Simmons (First Line Prompt- 7/6/14)

"Someone else is down here," she whispered, cringing at the slight echo.

"We know," Skye’s voice crackled over the comms, "the beta team is sending someone to get you."

The beta team. She’d been so excited to get the chance to work with Trip’s cousin Sharon on this mission, until Trip had clued them in on the fact that Ward was on her team. It was part of his rehabilitation.

She hoped it wasn’t him coming to get her.

Her hopes didn’t pan out.

She could tell it was him from his footsteps, too heavy to be Sharon’s and familiar enough to rule out the rest of beta team.

"Jemma, are you okay?" he whispered as he circled around her, surveying the rubble piled on top of her legs.

"I can move my left leg, but there’s something pinning my right one down," she replied calmly, masking her claustrophobia. It was bad enough that he knew about her fear of heights, he didn’t need to know about her issues with enclosed spaces. Not when he was the one responsible for it. Besides, she and May had made great headway with that. She could work through it when she needed to.

"Okay," he said, holding up a small device she’d seen before, "when I turn this on, it will counteract the gravity in the area, and you should be able to pull your leg out."

It was one of Fitz’s pieces. Something he was working on before Ward put him in the hospital, before he had to spend months in therapy working to get his mental and physical capabilities back. Jemma wanted to tell Ward that, but she was too worried he’d leave her here.

So she just nodded.

He turned it on and, like all of Fitz’s field approved gadgets, it did exactly what it said it would. Jemma slid her leg out and braced herself against the wall as she struggled to her feet.

When he started to help pull her up, she shrugged his arm away.

It hurt to walk on her right ankle, but it would have hurt more to rely on him again.


	60. Skye, Jemma & May (First Line Prompt- 7/6/14)

"We're the beginning of the end."

"Seriously?" Skye rolls her eyes, "You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?"

Jemma chokes back a snort. This guy is nearly a foot taller than Skye and looks like a solid wall of muscle. But of course Skye has to get a few words in.

His face reddens.

"Listen little girl, if you and your friend want to make it out of here in one piece, you’re going to want to shut your mouth."

"Not really," Skye shrugs. "I have more friends."

It’s a signal, one Jemma’s heard her use more than a few times. May leaps out of the shadows and straight for the thugs legs. It only takes three moves for her to have him on his back. Skye latches the cuffs around his wrists as May walks around to undo the ropes holding Jemma in place.

As much as she loves watching May and Skye take guys like this down, Jemma sure would like someone else to be the bait from time to time.


	61. Fitz/Skye (First Line Prompt- 7/6/14)

"You're okay; it was just a dream"

It takes Fitz a minute to remember where he is. His bunk. The Bus. Somewhere between Bogotá and Buenos Aires. With Skye.

"What are you doing in my bunk?" he asks her.

"You talk in your sleep. I wanted to make sure you were okay, and it sounded like you were in pain, so I let myself in."

It briefly crosses his mind that his bunk has a coded lock to keep other people out. But even his tired brain knows that it’s silly to expect the team hacker not to figure figure out his code (his mum’s birthday).

"Thank you," he finally replies.

"No problem, do you want to talk about it?"

"Just the usual. Drowning. The doctor’s said it’s normal, that I should try and talk to a professional if I’m able to."

"Well I’m not a shrink, but I can listen. Unless you want to talk to Simmons about it."

He shakes his head.

"She feels guilty enough as is. And there isn’t much to talk about. I drowned. I’m lucky to be alive. Of course the thought of repeating it scares me. Of course I’m a mess."

Skye takes a seat at the foot of his bed and faces him.

"You’re not the only one. The only mess, I mean," she clarifies. "Jemma has nightmares about falling. Coulson barely sleeps. Trip walks the hall after we all go to bed to make sure we’re still here. May’s actually managed to channel her anger into kicking people’s asses, so she’s better off than the rest of us, but that’s still pretty messed up."

"And you?" he asks.

"I wish I’d seen it sooner. I am afraid that it’s going to fuck me up forever, that I’ll never trust anyone who isn’t on this bus right now."

"I doubt that," he reassures her.

"Oh really?"

"I mean, you’ve made it this far. I don’t think I could’ve survived on my own like that."

It’s dark, but he can still see her smiling at him.

"Thanks, Fitz."

"You’re welcome. Although you’re the one who broke into my room to comfort me."

"I guess that’s the great thing about having a family. You look after each other."


	62. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt 8/3/14)

"You've gotten better, but I can still see the truth in your eyes."

He winces. He knew it would be hard to get them to trust him again, but it was starting to feel impossible.

"I’m sorry."

She turns towards him.

"I know. I can see that in your eyes, too. But are you sorry that you helped a terrible man do terrible things? Or are you just sorry that Fitz got hurt in the process?"

He doesn’t have a response for that. He’s been stewing alone in a cell for months, with the exception of occasional visits from Coulson, wanting information from him.

Information he’s freely given. Information that’s gotten him here. In a lab somewhere in Texas, across from his former teammate, Jemma Simmons.

And yet he still isn’t sure of the answer to his question.

He’s sorry that he’s caused them pain. He’s sorry that he’s lost the respect of people that cares about.

But if he hadn’t hurt them, if he still mattered to them, would he still regret all the things he’s done?

Clearly, he still has a long way to go.


	63. Jemma & Skye (First Line Prompt 8/3/14)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going forward, each drabble will be given it's own chapter. It makes it easier for me to keep track of things (and easier for you to find only the pairings you want).

"I have been calling you for three hours, so you'd better be dead or very, very sorry."

"I feel like I’m dead," Skye limps into the lab and collapses into a chair.

"You’re bleeding," Jemma exclaims, now that she’s actually turned around to look at Skye.

"No shit," Skye cocks her head and attempts to send the other woman a dirty look, only to wince in pain. "And I hit my head."

Jemma quickly crosses the room to place a tray full of medical equipment on the table next to Skye.

"Did you black out?" she asks.

"No," Skye replies, "although a nap would be nice right now."

Jemma gently prods at the small bump on the side of Skye’s head.

"It doesn’t look too bad. I think you’re fine. No concussion. Now let me look at your leg. Did you get it?"

"Getting it was the easy part. Getting out with it was harder. But we managed," Skye explains as she props her right let up for Jemma to get a look at.

"And what did May say?"

"That I need more practice with makeshift weapons for next time."

"For next time? That’s high praise."

"I know."


	64. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt 8/3/14)

"I, um... I'm not really the bring home to the parents kind of guy." 

"I’m sure they’ll love you."

"I’m sure they’ll be begging you to marry Fitz two hours after meeting me."

"I’ll have you know that my parents have no interest in seeing me marry Fitz."

"You’ve discussed that?" Skye pipes up from across the kitchen.

"I told them I was sorry about the rose garden," Fitz stammers, grabbing leftover’s from the fridge and heading back towards his bunk.

Skye follows him out, begging to know exactly what he did to the rose garden.

Jemma waits to hear the door to Fitz’s bunk close before turning to Ward.

"I assure you, my parents are going to love you. You are perfectly charming when you want to be, and all they want is for me to be happy."

"And I make you happy?" he asks with a grin.

She leans in and presses a gently kiss against his lips.

"Very."


	65. Trip/Simmons (Library AU  8/17/14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Library AU

Jemma thought being 15 minutes early was perfectly reasonable. It gave her time to grab one of the quiet study rooms and set up her books. And if she’d spent the previous hour deciding between two different button downs and helping herself to one of Skye’s lipglosses, then no one had to know.

She’d just opened her laptop to find Dr. Weaver’s lecture notes when she heard someone softly close the study room door behind them. She jumped slightly.

"My bad, I was trying not to scare you."

She turned to see Trip, who’d asked her to meet him there to help him study for their Intro to Biology exam. Apparently he was having trouble identifying bones.

"Coffee to make up for it?" he holds out one of the two coffee cups in his hand.

Jemma gratefully accepts. She’d been up late with Fitz, trying to puzzle something out for their independent study. And when she did finally get to bed, she’d been a little anxious about the prospect of being in close contact with the most gorgeous physical specimen she’s been fortunate enough to share a class with.

She’s drained half the cup before she remembers to thank him.

"No problem. Thanks for meeting with me again. I’m sure you don’t need to extra review. I hear you’re acing the class."

Jemma blushes and stutters out another thank you.

"So… bones?" she asks him as he takes a seat next to her.

"Yeah, about that. I have something to confess. I don’t really need your help."

She raises an eyebrow quizzically.

"I’m actually doing really well in the class."

"So you asked me to help you study because…"

"Well, I was going to ask you for coffee, but when I walked up to you Fitz was glaring at me and I kind of chickened out," he chuckles a bit at the memory of it.

"Yeah, he does that sometimes. He’s not fond of new people."

"Oh."

"But I am… fond of new people that is. And coffee. Although you just brought me one, so…" she trails off.

"Oh," he repeats.

"Maybe dinner?" she suggests, looking at her watch. It’s a bit early, but they’d have to drive off campus anyway to get anywhere decent.

"I’d like that. I know a good place. It’s just a diner, but–"

"That sounds great."


	66. Fitz/Skye (Xerox Machine Shenanigans AU- 8/25/14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xerox Machine Shenanigans AU

only thing that pierces the fog of his hungover mind is Jemma’s look of disdain.

"What?" he finally asks, after nearly an hour of her glaring but refusing to elaborate on what he’s done to deserve it.

Wordlessly, she grabs a folder off her desk and slides it over their shared work table towards him.

The black and white image is kind of blurry, so it takes him a few minutes to figure out what he’s looking at. It’s a photocopy of someone’s ass.

"It’s not mine," he protests immediately. No matter how drunk he’d gotten, there’s no way he’d do that. And if he did, he’d certainly remember that.

Leaning over the paper, Jemma points her finger at a long scar running diagonally across the left cheek.

"Remember when we were seven and you fell off the swings onto a rusty spade?"

Sometimes Fitz wishes he didn’t work with the best friend that’s known him for nearly his entire life. No one deserves to have those stories brought up at work.

"Which brings us," Jemma grins wickedly and pulls another sheet of paper from her folder, "to my next question."

"Yes," Fitz isn’t sure he wants to know what else he put on the office photocopier last night.

"Who do we know with a cloud tattooed on their ass?"

Fitz doesn’t even need to look at the paper, the memories are now coming back. 

Skye leaning leaning against the wall next to him, bottle of beer in hand. Skye tapping the beer bottle against his chest for emphasis as she recounts the time she conned their supervisor, Ward, into letting her take a half day just by making as many menstruation references as possible. Skye grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the dark, empty copy center. Skye convincing him that it would be totally hilarious to leave photocopies of their asses on Jemma’s desk. Running his fingers along the many tattoos Skye usually has hidden under her work clothes.

"No idea," he tells Jemma, with a shrug, turning back to his work.

At noon, when Skye drops by with Chinese food, it takes Jemma less than a second to put two and two together. He knows he’ll pay for holding out on her, once Skye is gone. But it was nice while it lasted.


	67. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 8/28/14)

Then why don't you?

"Because the last time I shot a gun, we both agreed it was a terrible idea and I should try my best to avoid doing it ever again?"

"Yeah, well that was before SHIELD consisted of less than a dozen agents. Now we need every advantage we’ve got, as you just said," Skye tried to hand Jemma the gun a second time.

She pushed Skye’s arm back again.

"Which is why we should probably keep the woman who failed her field exams away from the dangerous weapons."

"They’re more dangerous if you don’t know how to use them properly."

It’s a comment May made to her a couple of months ago, when Skye tried to convince her that giving the broadswords she’d found amongst their weapons stores would be harmless.

Jemma sighed. Skye actually had a point there. Her aim was terrible. If she absolutely needed a gun one day, she was liable to shoot a friend while aiming for an enemy.

"Fine, but this cannot get in the way of my lab duties. Fitz still… isn’t himself, and Trip’s medical knowledge isn’t nearly advanced enough, and… are you even listening?"

She was, at least halfway. The other bit of her attention was focused on searching for the appropriate box of bullets so that Jemma couldn’t run away to the lab after they’d shot off six rounds.


	68. Skye/Jemma (8/30/14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No prompt, just a short drabble

"Whatcha doin’?"

Jemma’s so exhausted, she doesn’t even notice Skye’s in the room until she’s leaning over her shoulder.

"Reading," she mumbles, her eyes threatening to close even though she’s really enjoying her book.

She’s been keeping late nights in the lab, helping Fitz adjust to the months of work he’s missed. And her days are filled with self-defense training, which May has insisted she commit herself to if she ever wants to be allowed in the field again.

Jemma has never been so tired and sore in her life, and that includes the weeks before she presented two simultaneous PhD theses.

"More journals?" Skye asks. Jemma’s spent most of her spare time over last few weeks catching up on research publications.

"Nope. This is for pleasure."

Her eyes are still on her e-reader screen, so she doesn’t notice the wicked gleam in Skye’s eyes.

Crossing over to the foot of Jemma’s bed, Skye crawls in over and lays down between the other woman and the wall. Jemma’s scoots slightly to her right to make room, and shakes her head in hopes of waking herself up a bit.

She’s in the middle of a particularly gruesome zombie beheading when she feels Skye’s lips trail kisses down her neck.

"Later," she mumbles, nudging Skye away and turning back to her book.

Skye’s hand works its way under her shirt and to the sensitive spot on her lower back. In most cases, this would have Jemma throwing the book over her shoulder and focusing all her attention on Skye (and in one case, it’s resulted in her awkwardly explaining to Coulson why she needed to have various expensive piece of lab equipment replaced), but she’s that tired. Even zombie massacres can’t keep her awake.

Turning off the screen, she gently places the book on the corner of her dresser. Then she rolls over the face Skye.

"You’re hair’s all wet," she comments, twirling a strand of it around her finger.

"Just got out of the shower. Two hours of improvised weapons training."

"I’m exhausted just thinking about it," Jemma groans.

Skye’s smile softens.

"No, you’re exhausted because you’re over worked and not getting enough sleep."

"Fair enough," she concedes.

"How about a nap before dinner," Skye suggests.

"But I’m supposed to help Fitz run a diagnostic on the DWARFs."

"I will text him and let him know that you’re too exhausted to be useful," Skye’s already digging phone out of her pocket.

Sighing gently, Jemma rolls back over so her back is pressed against Skye. Skye’s arm snakes around her side and pulls her in close.

"Make sure you set an alarm for seven," Jemma says sleepily. "I promised I’d make a salad."

Skye chuckles, and Jemma can feel the puffs of her breath against her scalp. She barely registers how pleasant that feels before she surrenders to sleep.

Skye doesn’t set the alarm. Jemma needs every minute of sleep she can get, and while Skye’s salads aren’t the gourmet event that Jemma’s are, they’ll all manage for a night.


	69. Skye/Jemma (First Line Prompt- 9/1/14)

"I can't find the spoons!"

"It was Fitz’s turn to run the dishwasher after dinner, so I’m willing to bet that they’re all still sitting there unwashed," Jemma doesn’t even turn to where Skye’s standing in the lounge doorway, a brand new container of chocolate chip ice cream in one hand.

"And what do you want if you win," Skye’s tone is suggestive, and Jemma blushes as she presses the series of buttons that will turn on the television and the Netflix access Skye and Fitz rigged to work regardless of the Bus’s location.

"If I win, I get to hold the ice cream. You’re terrible at sharing."

That’s probably not the kind of deal Skye was looking for. It’s not that Jemma’s embarrassed by public displays of affection, it’s just that she’s not nearly as turned on by them as Skye is. Hence the sheer number of times, she’s had to pry her girlfriends hands (and lips) away from her body in the middle of the lab (or the kitchen, or the briefing room, or, on one notable occasion, on stage in the middle of lecture at the Science Academy).

The screen flashes the red Netflix logo, and Jemma gets up just in time to see Skye shoot her an exaggerated pout before heading back to the galley to check the dishwasher. Jemma settles herself on the couch in a nest of blankets and pillows and waits for Skye to come back.

Jemma can just hear the double beep of the dishwasher turning on, letting her know her assumption was correct.

"You win," Skye confirms, re-entering the room with the ice cream and two spoons, which Jemma assumes she hand-washed.

Sliding into the small open spot in Jemma’s cocoon of blankets, Skye places the ice cream container in Jemma’s hands. Jemma smiles, thinking she might actually be able to enjoy her ice cream without competing with Skye for space to get her spoon in. Then, Skye lifts Jemma’s hands and slides her legs into her lap, sitting as close as possible to Jemma and the ice cream.

Of course, there was no way she’d be getting in between Skye and her sweet tooth.

This time it’s Jemma who gives Skye an exaggerated pout.

"Should’ve been more specific," Skye shrugs, then wraps her left arm around Jemma’s shoulders and pulls her close.

Jemma might not get the easy ice cream access she’d hoped for, but this is certainly a nice consolation prize.


	70. Trip/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 9/1/14)

"Please, make it stop."

Trip chuckled as Jemma collapsed onto the bench, sweat dripping down her forehead.

"You’re the one who wanted to learn," he pointed out, keeping his tone light. Jemma was generally the easiest of his teammates to be around, but then again he wasn’t usually putting her through two hours of combat drills.

"I didn’t know it would be this… trying," she says, then corrects herself. "Actually, I did know that. I tried and failed field exams once. I was just holding onto the hope that after nearly half a year in the field I’d somehow acquired the physical abilities through osmosis."

She’s too tired to completely lift her head, but she does tilt it slightly so Trip can see her small smile. She’s joking, mostly.

"You’re getting better," he tells her, sincerely.

"Better than terrible is still pretty bad," she insists.

"Yeah, but you still rule the lab," he counters.

"I share the lab with Fitz."

"We all know who’s really in charge. The one who leaves her specimen lying around wherever she feels like," he teases.

"I have done that exactly twice in my life, I will have you know."

Her urge to defend herself, sparks up what little remains of her energy, and she’s up off her bench and standing toe to toe with Trip.

"Suuuuuuure," he tells her with mocking nod.

"Well, in that case, I’ll leave Fitz to patch you up next time you come in with an injury."

"No, no. Anything but that," his exaggerated pleas are accompanied by a drop to his knees and his hands clasped together to beg. Jemma can’t help but laugh, hard.

"Okay, okay," she agrees, "I will see to your injuries personally, but only if we agree to take a break from the push-ups tomorrow."


	71. Ward/Simmons (First Line Prompt- 9/1/14)

It was so hot, she might just kill someone if air conditioning were on the line.

"Just so we’re clear," she tells him, "from now on I get to pick our vacation destinations. We do not get nearly enough time off to spend it sweating to death in the middle of nowhere."

"We’re not going to sweat to death," he responds, trying to calm her anger. "We have plenty of water and—"

"And I smell terrible."

She knows they’re not going to sweat to death. She has two PhDs in biochemistry, and if she really felt they were going to sweat to death she would have grabbed his key and driven herself back to civilization. But she’d hated the idea of this camping trip from the moment he suggested it, and hated it even more she’d lost her right to any input in a game of pool. And it was so hot she couldn’t even muster up any enthusiasm to leave their tent and observe the local flora and fauna, and she’d already shed most of her clothing in hopes of finding some comfort, but nothing was helping.

She was so sweaty and miserable that even the sight of an equally sweaty Ward lying next to her (but not so close that his body heat made things even worse), very clearly putting his shirtless torso on display for her, could make things tolerable.

"This is by far the worst idea you’ve ever had," she says.

He sighs and she can hear him rustling around, but she’s too exhausted to roll over and look at what he’s doing… until she hears him pull the truck keys out of his pockets.

"It’s about a two hour drive to the nearest hotel…"

But she barely hears him, she’s already out of the tent and packing up their things.


	72. Jemma, Skye & May (First Line Prompt- 9/1/14)

"Say it with me: there is a fine line between shit talking and actually threatening someone's life."

"Like I would actually keep a flesh eating bacteria on the Bus," Jemma protested.

"That’s besides the point," Skye told her. May just sighed deeply.

"And we got the information we needed," Jemma offered.

"Yes, but we need to maintain friendly relations with our informants," May pointed out, her tone even as usual.

"Not make them shit themselves and run away screaming," Skye elaborated.

"Okay, fine. No more biological threats without explicit permission," Jemma promised. "Do we still have time to grab some food on the way back to the Bus?"

"I’ll stop at a drive-thru if you want something, but after listening to you describe invisible, painful, flesh eating lifeforms, I’m not exactly starving," May slipped on her sunglasses, a small smile passing on her lips.

"You are seriously twisted," Skye added.


	73. Skye/Jemma (First Line Prompt- 9/6/14)

"It really wasn't as scandalous as it sounds!"

"Yeah, I’m sure sex in the lab is a totally normal thing," Skye says with a roll of her eyes.

"Alright, maybe the choice of location wasn’t the usual, but it appealed to her and she appealed to me, so I went with. And I did a very thorough clean up afterwards. Fitz would have never known if Jamie hadn’t walked in on it and then told everyone."

"He said you broke one of his prototypes."

Jemma sighs deeply and throws her hands up in frustration. Clearly she and Fitz have argued about this before.

"We did not break it. Jamie knocked it over as he ran out of the room, and if Fitz had secured it properly that never would have happened. All I was guilty of was relieving the stress of an experiment that wasn’t working properly."

"And sex was the best way to do that?" Skye smirks.

"Studies show it’s one of the most popular means of stress relief amongst those who work in high pressure environments. It’s especially common with athletes, the Olympic Village is essentially a giant orgy."

"And SHIELD Academy is as stressful as the Olympics?" Skye can’t hide her amusement.

"Hardly. The 2012 summer Olympics had over ten thousand participants. The Science and Technology Academy was much more exclusive and competitive than that."

Skye can’t think of a response for that. Except that she’s wondering exactly how Jemma deals with the stress of their current situation, and if there’s any way she can help with that.


	74. Skye & Jemma (First Line Prompt- 10/5/14)

Jemma could feel a part of her from years ago shrinking back from Skye's accusation, but she'd grown since then.

"I’m not going to talk about it with you, Skye. Not now."

"Like hell you aren’t. You can’t just up and leave us, then expect us to act like nothing’s happened the moment you want to come back."

Jemma stands abruptly and strides towards the lab doors. If Skye wants to have this out, then they’ll have this out. But not in front of Fitz and Mack and Trip, who are all gathered around some machine on the other side of the lab.

When the doors shut behind both women, Jemma turns to face Skye.

"You want to know where I’ve been? I’ve been working for Hydra."

Skye’s face falls, she clearly didn’t see that one coming. But her disappointment is quickly replaces with anger.

"And Coulson just let you back? I can’t fucking believe it."

"I’ve been reporting to Coulson ever since I left. How do you think he knows who Hydra’s recruited and what projects they’re working on? I’m the one giving you that information."

Jemma wants to scream, but she manages to keep calm. Of course they think the worst of her. Half the time she thinks to worst of herself. But Coulson needed a mole and she needed some time to herself, to sort out her priorities. She did the right thing.

"But someone else could have done that. We needed you here," the anger has left Skye’s voice, leaving only the hurt behind.

"I’m sorry."

And she is. She’s sorry she needed to leave. She’s sorry that watching Fitz struggle to return to his former self only made her feel guilty. She’s sorry she left in the middle of night, too embarrassed to say good-bye.

But she did.

And she came back, armed with information and a mind ready to meet whatever challenge was thrown at her.

Even if that challenge was all her friends hating her.

Because regardless of why she left, Jemma had done important work. She had done work that no one else, no matter how great of a spy they were, could have gotten done. Because Jemma Simmons was one the most brilliant scientists on the face of the planet. She had gone to Hydra to figure out what was in GH-325. And she had succeeded.


	75. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Line Prompt- 10/6/14)

"I refuse to get suckered into your - wait, is that chocolate?"

"Maybe," Skye teases as she breaks off a square of the giant bar and pops it in her mouth.

They’ve been living in an underground base for months, only leaving it for Coulson-approved business. And none of that business has included stopping for groceries or liquor or even to replace his dwindling collection of t-shirts that he hasn’t bled all over. He’s asked. And if things don’t change, he’s going to be shirtless soon.

But that’s beside the point.

He knows there’s no chocolate in the kitchen, and none coming in from Koenig’s weekly grocery orders. The one extravagance they’re allowed is cheap beer, and they steamroll their way through it.

Lance never thought he’d miss chocolate.

"And how exactly did you manage to get chocolate?"

"I might have made a short pitstop on my way back last night."

Of course she can do that. Because she goes on solo missions. He’s not allowed off base without Trip or May to babysit him.

He may not have been on the team for long, but he can tell that Skye’s using this chocolate to talk him into something. Otherwise she’d be eating in the privacy of her own bunk. He’s not sure how she’s found out about his increasing desperation (although he suspects Koenig has something to do with it), but she’s definitely using it to manipulate him.

And it might just work.

"I just need your support on something."

"Fitz?" he asks, voice full of false innocence.

That has to be what she’s referring to. Mack’s mentioned that she thinks they should let Fitz out of the lab and above ground. He’s been down here constantly for as long and Lance has been working here, and Skye thinks a break would do him good. Coulson and May aren’t crazy about the idea.

He’s not sure why she thinks he’s going to get a say in the matter, no one’s really interested in his opinions. But if it gets him the chocolate, he’ll say whatever she wants.

"Fine," he tells her. "Put him in the field, send him out for groceries, fly him to the moon. I’ll agree."

"Thank you," Skye says with a sly grin.

She breaks off a small piece of the chocolate bar, about two squares, and drops it on the table in front of him. The she stands up.

"I’m going to need more than this," he tells her quickly retreating form.

"Should have negotiated better," she calls over her should as she disappears out the door.

And they think he’s the immoral one.


	76. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Line Prompt- 10/10/14)

"Put your hands on my shoulders," he guides her hands up as she stares. "What, why?" "We're going undercover," he says with a smirk. She rolls her eyes as she concedes, letting him lead the dance.

Skye wouldn’t exactly call him a graceful lead, but no one’s staring at them in horror and he’s maneuvering across the floor in a way that lets her eavesdrop on the conversations she needs to hear.

"You are not completely terrible at this," she tells him. "Although how a soldier turned mercenary learned to ballroom dance is beyond me."

"Izzy," he tells her. "We needed to learn for a mission in Monaco, so she taught us."

"Us?" Skye asks him to clarify.

"Me and Idaho."

She laughs and he glares at her.

"Sorry," she apologizes, "I’m just picturing Idaho leading and you following and… it’s a beautiful image."

"I will have you know that I got to lead most the time. Idaho has– had,” he corrects himself and it instantly sobers the situation, “two left feet.”

The silence that follows grows awkward, Lance clearly caught up in thoughts about his old teammates. Skye forces her focus back onto the mission.


	77. Jemma & Skye (First Line Prompt- 10/10/14)

"Why is there a baboon in my bathroom?"

"I thought it would cheer Fitz up?" Skye replies weakly.

"So you stole it from the zoo and hid it in my bathroom?" Jemma’s still struggling to wrap her mind around the scene in front of her.

"Well I had it in the van, but it was making a lot of noise and I thought I heard someone call the police so I had to move it I knew you’d be working in the lab until late, so…"

"You locked a baboon in my bathroom," Jemma finishes for her.

"I was hoping Trip would help me return it before you got back, but he got delayed coming back from Baltimore."

Jemma just stared at Skye blankly.

"I’m sorry," the other woman offered.

"Go get Fitz. It’s already destroyed my bathroom, we might as well let him have some fun."

As Skye headed out the room and down the hall, Jemma muttered to herself, “And maybe this will convince him that a monkey in the base is a terrible idea.”


	78. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Line Prompt- 10/11/14)

"In my defense, I really didn't expect you to be home this early."

"So if I wasn’t home right now, it would be totally okay for you to let yourself into my bunk?" Skye’s voice is even, but her anger is crystal clear.

"I can explain," Lance responds.

She raises an eyebrow at him in a way that tells him that she doesn’t think he’s going to have a decent explanation. Fortunately, he’s saved from his mad scramble to come up with a decent excuse by the sound of someone running down the hall towards them.

"I’m so sorry," Simmons appears in the doorway, panting slightly from her run. "I was waiting for her to get back so I could distract her like we planned, but then Fitz and Mack needed help and I tried to tell them to go get Trip, but they couldn’t find him and they insisted."

"Distract her like we planned? You’re in on this," Skye crosses her arms in front of her chest and looks at Jemma expectantly.

"You don’t honestly think he figured out the code to your bunk by himself," Jemma says smugly, then turns and walks back the way she came.

Skye turns back to

"Simmons said I needed to be more romantic. She pushed for wine and flowers, but I know you like the microbrew we got at that bar a few months back so I went with that and triple chocolate lava cake."

"The one from Rinaldi’s?" Apparently chocolate trumps trespassing in her books.

"Again, Jemma said I should try and bake it myself, but honestly–”

"It’s probably for the best that you didn’t."

"But I did take her advice and buy rose petals," he adds, dropping a large plastic bag on top of her sheets."

"Yeah, those are going to make a mess. Let’s keep them in the bag."

He nods and slides the bag to the foot of the bed.

"But I will take you up on that chocolate cake."

"I also have candles," he offers.

"Not as exciting as chocolate," she counters.

"And Fitz finally set us up to get Netflix, and everyone agreed to stay out of the small lounge for the rest of the night."

"I promise to be more excited about that after the cake."


	79. Leo Fitz (First Line Prompt- 10/12/14)

His hands shook but he held his ground.

"I’m the only one who can do this. You need me out there," he raises his voice and, as always, they’re too afraid of hurting him to say anything about it.

"Look," he forces himself to be calm about it. If he wants out of this lab, he needs to convince them he won’t fall apart in the field. "I’m not at 100%. No one knows that better than me. But even like this, I’m the only one who has a chance in hell of getting this done. So you can give me all the rules and stipulations and… supervision you want. But you need to let me take care of this."

Which is how he ends up leaving the Playground for the first time since he got there, on the Bus, heading towards certain danger. His hands shake, and the voice in the back of his head (one that no longer sounds like Jemma) creeps doubt into his mind. But he shuts it down. Everything he told them is true. He’s the only one who can do this.

And he will.


	80. Ward/Simmons (High School- 10/12/14)

In the sixteen years since he last saw her, he’d imagined this encounter more time that he cared to admit. Still, he’d never thought it would take place in his classroom during parent-teacher conferences.

In retrospect, maybe he should have paid better attention when a transfer student by the name of Grace Simmons turned up on his class roster.

To say he was startled when Jemma Simmons walked into his classroom was an understatement. While he floundered for anything to say, her bright eyes held his gaze.

"Jemma," he finally managed to piece words together, "you look… well."

"Very much so. I see Grace’s progress reports indicate satisfactory achievement."

"Yes," he gulps. Her business-like tone threw him completely, she sounded nothing like the excitable girl he’d met in college, or even the distraught woman he’d insisted could do better than him. But he composes himself. "Her test grades are excellent, but she’s not putting as much effort into her essays as I think she could be."

Jemma nods, and makes a note on the flyer in her hands.

Sixteen years ago, he’d pushed her away so she could achieve her big dreams. She’d wanted him to come with her, but he’d insisted he didn’t belong. How they’d both ended up in the same California suburb sixteen years later is beyond him.

"I’ll talk to her about the essays. Is that all?"

The school has allotted 5 to seven minutes for each parent-teacher meeting, and they’ve taken up two.

"Yes," he tells her. If she wants to leave, he’s not going to force her. Even now, he knows better than to do that.

She’s halfway to the door when he decides he can’t let this chance meeting slip through his fingers.

"Jemma," he calls, "would you like to get coffee sometime."

She pauses.

"I don’t think that would be wise."

Maybe he doesn’t have much say in the matter.


	81. Trip/Simmons (Run- 10/12/14)

This is it, Jemma thinks as they lock her arms into the restraints. This is my last moment as Jemma Simmons. She wants to scream, but with the fear bubbling up in her throat all that comes out is a sob.

In a few seconds they’ll turn on the machines and the best she can hope for is a swift death. At worst, she’ll get to live through hours of excruciating pain before becoming compliant, losing every shred of her former self and probably selling out her team in the process.

As Bakshi crossed behind her to secure her leg restraints, there’s a bright flash of light. Jemma, and everyone else in the room, disoriented as the gunfire starts.

If she gets shot, at least the rest of the team will be safe.

She’s stuck in a position where she can’t see much, but now that the shooting’s stopped, it definitely seems like they’ve moved onto gun fight.

Then, she can feel hands maneuvering their way around the leg restraints. It’s an excruciating thirty seconds before she can move her left leg, then her right. And she still doesn’t know if it’s friend or foe behind her.

Her savior crosses in front of her to tackle her arm restraints, and cool relief floods her body when she sees that it’s Trip.

As soon as he’s taken care of the restraints, he’s pulling her behind him towards the door.

At some point during their race down the halls, he pushes her in front of him, so he can see to shoot at their assailants. They’re making their way towards the roof when Jemma remembers her research, currently sitting at her desk in a lab seven floors below their feet. She tries to explain to Trip that they need to go back, but he refuses.

"Jemma, we came here for you. The research can be redone as long as you’re safe. Now come on," and with that he pulls her out onto the roof and towards what she assumes is the camouflaged Quinjet.

Later, when she’s safely back in the Playground’s lab where Trip is checking her for injuries, she’ll wonder if leaving her research behind was a good idea. But in the heat of the moment all she feels is elated to be back in the arms of people who care about her.


	82. Skye/Lance Hunter (Mischief- 10/12/14)

She finds Lance in one of the base’s many storage rooms, doing inventory.

"You and Mack make another bet?" she asks.

"No," he tells her. "That was mechanical parts, this is bullets."

"Isn’t that Trip’s job?"

"Yes, but Trip might have caught me in the shooting range with the targets all switched to look like General Talbot. We agreed I’d do inventory in exchange for him not telling May about it. That damn bruise finally healed, I don’t want another."

Skye smirked at the memory of the giant purple bruise on his shoulder. His choice in shirts frequently put it on display as it faded away. Between the bruise and his biceps, Lance Hunter was proving giving her excellent practice in ignoring distractions.

"But you didn’t trade out the targets," she tells him.

She did.

"I know," this time he smirks at her, "which is why I was hoping whoever did would give me a hand with these damn bullets."

The room was fairly small, but it was filled with shelves and shelves full of boxes of bullets. Skye didn’t even realize they had so many different guns. This was going to take him all day.

"No can do," she says, and while part of her is sorry, she’s mostly just glad she’s not the one who has to do this. "I have to change for hand-to-hand combat training."

He shoots an impressive glare at her as she heads out the door.

When he finally finishes, he heads towards the kitchen, planning on a few beers to dull the ache in his head. Sorting through so many bullets had driven him cross-eyed.

Of course, the giant industrial fridge had pretty much everything but beer.

He’s cursing under his breath when he heard the clatter of glass being dropped on the table behind him.

He turns to find Skye and a six-pack.

"Trip asked for these an hour ago. I told him they were all gone," she says.


	83. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Line Prompt- 10/13/14)

"Oh my god, stop talking about your ex. Go back for the love of freaking god." 

"Or what?"

In this case, here is a cramped kitchen cupboard in a giant mansion hosting a silent auction in which at least a dozen 084s could fall into the wrong hands.

They’ve made their way in, disguised as waitstaff and are quickly changing into formalwear.

At least, Skye is trying to be quick about it.

Lance, on the other hand, is taking the opportunity to bring up the time his ex-wife said that any man who can’t tie an Eldredge Knot is completely useless. She can’t, but she figures the tie would be more useful to strangle him with, anyway.

"Don’t look," she tells him as she strips off her black vest and white button-down.

A part of her believes he wants to (and maybe another part of her wants him to), but then he brings up his ex-wife and, once again, she has no idea what’s going on between them,

She’s checking her for cleavage mishaps in a mirrored serving platter when she catches his reflection.

He’s totally looking.


	84. Skye/Lance Hunter (Scars- 10/14/14)

"How do you even get shot there?" Skye asks and Lance transfers his weight from her shoulder to the a chair.

"It’s simple really. An idiot tries to shoot you in the chest and misses."

She quickly grabs the supplies she needs from a cabinet. Jemma was thorough before she left, all she needs to do is grab one of the stacked trays, everything she needs is already laid out on it.

Still, she can’t help but wish Jemma was still here to deal with this. Hunter said it was just a graze, but Jemma was the one who knew most about bullet-wounds. And shutting up overly chatty patients.

Skye slams the tray down on the lab table harder than she means to. Lance raises an eyebrow at her, but she ignores it and grabs the pair of scissors. Quickly and efficiently, she cuts up the left leg of his pants.

"Listen, if you wanted me naked, all you needed to do was ask," he cracks.

"I can leave you here to take care of this yourself," she counters.

Normally she has more patience for his quips, but she’s gotten three hours of sleep in the last 48, crawled through a sewer, and rappelled down the side of a building. If she had her way, she;d be taking a shower and getting some sleep, not patching up a gunshot wound in Lance Hunter’s thigh.

She yawns.

Maybe she’d skip the shower and just go straight to sleep. Who cares how bad she smells.

"Fine, but I can get these off myself," he tells her.

He spends five minutes trying to squirm and roll his way out of his pants, but some of his blood has dried and they’re now stuck to his wounds. Eventually, he gives up and lets Skye soak a sponge with water and loosen the fabric up enough to cut it away.

The first thing she notices is that he’s a boxer-briefs guy. That actually surprises her. She had him pegged for boxers with clowns or cartoon bunnies on them.

Pushing that thought to the side, she focuses on the wound in his thigh. It’s a long, but just a shallow graze. He probably only bled so much because they were running.

She spends a few minutes cleaning away the dried blood to get a better look. That just confirms her original statement, there’s nothing much to worry about. Not like the jagged scar a few inches above his knee.

"Not the first time you’ve been shot in the thigh," she remarks.

"That was a knife," she corrects.

"Oh."

"Hurt like a bitch," he elaborates.

"I can imagine."

He’s a mercenary, she’s remembers. Of course he’s got scars. There’s probably more of them all over his body.

She briefly lets herself consider the rest of his body before getting back to work.

Slowly and methodically, she cleans the wound and covers it with gauze.

"All set," she tells him.

"Great. Now can you help me to my room?" he asks.

Which is how Skye ends up parading a pants-less Lance Hunter through the base to his room.

Trip takes pictures for future embarrassment.


	85. Diamond (Trip/Skye- 10/18/14)

"I still don’t see why we have to go through all of this," Skye whispers when Trip lands silently next to her.

"Because," he says patiently, "it’s not like these guys are searching Craigslist for jewel thieves."

"If Coulson had just given me a couple more days, I could have found them."

"I don’t doubt it. But this works better. Makes them come to us."

They both disconnect from the ropes they just dropped down and continue through the museum, stopping every so often to wait out the motion detectors.

"How exactly does this make them come to us?" she asks as they approach the room they’ve targeted.

"We know they’re based in Madrid. We know they’re looking for someone to steal the Macari Diamond for them. We prove that we can steal an equally hard to get jewel, and they come knocking at our door."

It sounds like a good plan. And considering the number of closed door meetings Coulson and May had about it, Skye assumes they think so too.

But when they slip through the door to the room housing the Castellano Emerald, Skye’s first thought is that it all might slip through their fingers.

"Did you know there would be laser grids?" she asks, panicked.

He sighs.

"Let’s just hope you’re as well-trained as May says you are."


	86. Not Wearing That (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/18/14)

"On a scale of one to ten, how bad to you think this is going to be?" Skye asks Trip.

"Three-hundred and twelve," Fitz cuts in.

"Yeah, I still can’t believe you actually agreed to this," Trip smiles and shakes his head.

If Skye didn’t know better, she’d swear he was enjoying her pain.

"Well how the hell was I supposed to know he’s so good at poker."

"Why would you even take that risk?" Trip says.

She shouldn’t have. She absolutely shouldn’t have agreed to a bet where the terms were winner gets to pick the loser’s clothes for and undercover mission at a night club. She was really hoping to get him in something glittery and neon, so she can only imagine how much she’s going to hate what he picked out.

He left an hour ago, laughing when Skye reminded him that they were going to a nightclub, not a strip club.

When he finally returns, they’re all sitting in the lab, waiting to see Skye’s humiliation.

"Ta da," he says as he pulls the dress out of the black bag.

It’s… actually not terrible.

Yes, it’s short and no, she doesn’t really know what kind of bra she’s going to be able to wear with it.

But she was expecting worse.

For one, it actually looks like a dress, not a handkerchief or a headband or any of the other horrors she had imagined.

And for another, it’s purple. Skye can live with purple. In fact, Skye likes purple.

Maybe she won’t kill him tonight.


	87. Breaking the Rules (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/20/14)

"This is a terrible idea," he tells her for the third time, as she slides the cloned ID card through the reader outside of Koenig’s office.

"You can leave," Skye points out.

"And let you have all the fun?"

"Then shut up."

She’s tempted to slam the door in his face, but that would probably draw attention to them. And they’re not supposed to be in Koenig’s room (hence the fact that Skye had to steal, clone and return his ID in order to get them in here without anyone noticing).

But as much as she’s been pretending she’s not curious, Skye really does want to know how Billy could possibly have so many brother who look exactly like him. And unlike most of the other mysteries in her life, she might actually have a shot at figuring this one out.

Of course, Trip refuses to do this with her. And two minutes after she asks, Hunter volunteers to join her. 

Trip probably would have been more help. Hunter just stands next to the door looking confused.

"What exactly are we looking for?" he eventually asks.

"Anything that could give us a hint as to how there could be so many Koenigs."

"So like a photo of a test tube wearing a ‘new mom’ t-shirt?"

She rolls her eyes.

Unfortunately he does have a point. Trip’s best theories is clones. And they’re not exactly going to find proof of that in Koenig’s office.

Still, they search anyway.


	88. Skye/Lance Hunter (Waiting- 10/21/14)

"Oh, but that accent. How could you resist it?"

"I’d let him give me a big tip, if you know what I mean."

Skye has to force herself not to her roll eyes as she walks by the table full of women on their third cocktails.

She's beginning to think that Trip purposely sits all of their girls night out groups in Lance’s section. It can’t just be luck that all of Skye’s Friday and Saturday night shifts consist of listening to drunk women ogle Lance at uncomfortable loud volumes.

She wishes she could get the kind of tip money he was raking in. And unlike the drunk men she frequently got saddled with, none of these women had tried to grope him. At least as far as she knew.

But they clearly wanted to. She’d seen his receipts with the phone number scrawled across the top.

She didn’t blame them, really. The accent was hot. She’d tried to fake a similar one during a particularly slow shift, to see if that was what brought in the tips. Her customers had just looked at her like she’d grown another head.

Maybe if she invested in lower cut t-shirts.

Whatever, it wasn’t worth it.

Sliding up next to him at the cash register, she repeats, “the blonde at table 23 wants you to give her a big tip, if you know I mean.”

"Which one, leopard print bra or butterfly tattoo?" he doesn’t look up.

She swats him on the shoulder.

"I wasn’t paying that much attention."

He turns and grins at her.

"Neither was I."

"Because you’re a sweet and devoted boyfriend who is never tempted by a low-cut t-shirt?" she jokes.

"Only when you’re wearing it."

Quickly, he wraps an arm around her hip and pulls her in for a quick peck on the lips.

Only two more hours until they could go home,


	89. Fever (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/22/14)

The tossing and turning in the bed signals to Skye that Hunter’s awake again. She checks the clock on her laptop; it’s been just over two hours since he took his last round of medication and conked out.

She’d been hoping he’d sleep a little longer.

Not that she doesn’t feel bad for him. Whatever that Hydra operative dosed him with (Simmons keeps referring to it as a ‘toxic agent,’ whatever that means) required multiple injections just to keep it from killing him. Of course he feels like shit.

She just wishes she didn’t have to babysit him.

Because apparently all it takes to level a well-trained mercenary is what sounds like the flu.

It’s still another two hours until she can give him more medicine, so she braces herself.

"Cold," he croaks.

Sore throat is one of his many symptoms.

She sighs, “Do you want another blanket?”

She’s already had to take the comforter from Jemma’s bed. Good thing she and Trip are out in the field, taking care of a group of construction workers hit with the same stuff as Hunter.

She thinks he nods, but she can only see about half of his face above the blankets so she’s not sure. She goes to Trip’s room and grabs the blanket.

About ten minutes after she’s added that sixth blanket to the pile on top of him (three comforters, a quilt, a fleece throw blanket and a wool knit blanket), he’s complaining that he’s cold again.

She wouldn’t have guessed that a man who can barely speak could whine so much.

"Sorry, we’re all out of blankets."

She tries to be nice about it. But she’s spent most of the morning sitting in a chair in his room, trying to find more information on her father, only to be interrupted by him wanting more blankets, or soup, or tea, or another antacid, or to be entertained (she actually walked out of the room the second time he complained of boredom). The only time she makes any progress with her searches is when he’s asleep. She’s wearing thin.

"You could get in the bed," he suggests meekly.

She glares at him over the top of her laptop screen.

"Body heat," he further explains, as if she didn’t get it the first time.

"I don’t care if Jemma says you’re not contagious. I am not taking that risk. And besides, I don’t want you coughing and sneezing all over me. It’s gross."

Skye might have spent all morning at his beck and call, but even she has her limits.

She can feel him staring at her through her computer screen. She looks up and, sure enough, he’s giving her large, dark puppy dog eyes. His mouth is obscured by blankets, but she’s willing to bet he’s pouting too.

She tries to ignore him, but he has a way of making that impossible. Pretty soon, she slamming her laptop shut and walking around to the other side of the bed. Kicking her shoes off, she lifts the covers and crawls in next to him.

"If you so much as breathe on me, I’m out of here," she tells him.

He shifts so his back is pressed up against her.

Only an hour and a half until she can give him more medication and get back to work.


	90. Irresistible (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/23/14)

Skye likes to consider slipping out of Lance’s room for early morning Tai Chi to be great spy practice. So when she hears him roll over and start fumbling through the blankets for her, she considers it a flubbed mission.

If only she’d paid better attention to where her pants ended up last night. If she hadn’t had to perform a thorough search (seriously, how did they end up in his dresser?), then she’d be halfway to meeting May already.

His grasping gets more dramatic, which to Skye means it’s unlikely that he’s just going to roll over and fall back asleep, contend to curl up in the warm spot she left behind. She can’t be that lucky.

So, as quickly as possible, she slides her arms through the sleeves of her jacket and tip toes to the bedroom door, her shoes in her hands.

She almost makes it.

“It’s not even five in the bloody morning,” he remarks, his voice raspy with sleep.

 

“I know,” she whispers, hoping the tone will lull him back into comfort. “Go back to sleep.”

“You’re crazy, you know,” he tells her.

“I’m a SHIELD agent,” she replies automatically. They have this conversation frequently.

“So am I, now. But you don’t see me up at the crack of dawn just for fun.”

The sleepiness is fading from his voice, and he’s propped his head up on one arm to look at her. He’s not going back to sleep. He is going to argue.

“How did you manage to function as a mercenary if you can’t wake up early?” Skye asks as she leans back against the closed door. It’s not like the rest of the world conforms to his schedule. There are plenty of morning people out there, not that Skye considers herself one.

“There’s a different between can and will,” he explains. “I _can_ get up early when I need to.”

“Trust me, I’m aware that you can get it up early,” Skye mutters under her breath, her eyes dropping to the blanket covering his crotch.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t take the bait. Sometimes he enjoys arguing more than he loves bragging about his sexual prowess.

“I just _won’t_ get up early, not without proper compensation,” he pulls himself forward into a sitting position and Skye takes a moment to enjoy the sight of his shirtless torso. He might not be going to morning Tai Chi, but he’s certainly getting his workouts in somewhere.

“Or the threat of Coulson turning you in to Talbot,” Skye adds.

“Or the threat of Coulson turning me in to Talbot,” he agrees.

He does wake up early when they have work to get done. He just complains a lot while he does it.

“Then I’ll go to May, and you can go back to sleep.”

And they’re back to square one.

“But it’s more fun with you here,” he cocks an eyebrow at her.

Skye holds back a snort.

“Only when we aren’t actually sleeping.”

“Which is why I can think of a much better way for you to get some exercise,” he tugs on the sheets until they inch down enough to show the v-lines of his pelvis.

Like she needed the visual cue.

Skye rolls her eyes, but drops her shoes and crosses back to the bed. Climbing on top of his, she braces her hands on the headboard, to either side of his face and leans over him.

He grins.

"I thought you didn’t get up early," she whispers, "not without proper compensation."

"Or proper incentive."

Roughly, she pushes her mouth against his. His hands slide down from the middle of her back to cup her ass. His hands always end up there at some point.

She gives the kiss a good full minute before sharply pulling away and sliding off him. It only takes her a couple seconds to grab her shoes and get out the door.

She can hear him cursing as it swings shut behind her.


	91. Shackles (Fitz/Skye- 10/24/14)

She worries about him, more than she’d care to admit most of the time. Because as long as she doesn’t admit she’s scared he won’t get better, she can pretend she doesn’t feel that way.

But it’s hard to watch someone you care about fold into himself. It’s like he’s locked up in his own head and there’s nothing any of them can do about it.

Nothing she can do.

She tries stopping by the lab whenever she gets the chance. She wants to talk to him, to check in on him.

But he doesn’t want to be checked in on.

He gets progressively more and more hostile every time she steps in the lab. So she stops going.

She starts watching him through the labs security cameras. He’d be so angry if he knew, but she’s worried enough not to care.

What she does see worries her even more.

He’s talking to himself. A lot. He’s holding conversations with himself, not just muttering under his breath as he pieces together information.

She doesn’t know what to do.

It’s not that she wants the old Fitz back, although she’d take that in heartbeat. It just breaks her heart to see him so withdrawn, so obviously confused and hurting.

And there’s nothing she can do to help.


	92. Happy Birthday (Trip/Skye- 10/25/14)

"And Coulson okayed a liquor store run just like that?" Trip asks, buckling his seatbelt.

"Well if you hadn’t waited until the last minute to tell us it was your birthday, Koenig would have taken care of it days ago," Skye starts the car, which she insisted on driving.

"I don’t need a party," he tells her.

"Yeah, well I do. And Hunter’s beside himself with joy."

"Of course he is."

They drive in companionable silence for the half hour it takes them to reach the nearest town. Skye pulls into a strip mall and parks the car in front of a place called “Sally’s Coffee & Sweets.”

"This isn’t a liquor store," Trip points out.

"Yeah, you’re not going to the liquor store."

"Oh really?" he raises an eyebrow at her.

"Okay, so maybe I wrote down everyone’s birthdays back when I was completely erasing us from existence."

"And my present’s in a coffeeshop?"

Skye opens her door and starts to get out of the car.

"Just go see."

Warily, he exits the car and peers through the windows at the front of the store. It’s pretty empty, just a bored looking barista and a table full of old ladies.

The he notices a woman sitting in a corner booth, reading a book.

He turns to Skye.

"You brought me my mom?"

Skye shrugs.

"You’ve been mentioning her daily for the last month or so. I thought you might like to see her."

"And Coulson just okayed you telling a civilian where we are?"

"Just the approximate location. And if we can’t trust the daughter of a Howling Commando, who can we touch? I’ll be by in a few hours to take you back to base."

"Absolutely not."

She gives him a confused look.

"You’re coming to to meet her," he says, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the store.


	93. Sunlight (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/28/14)

“You know,” Lance grumbles as he follows Skye up the trail, “when Coulson said we had a day off in Hawaii, I pictured us laying out on the beach all day, or surfing, or being too busy to leave the hotel room, if you know what I mean.”

“Of course I know what you mean,” Skye rolls her eyes and takes a seat on a large boulder to wait for him to catch up. “A twelve year old would know what you mean. And you already spent three hours lying around on the beach; you’re lucky you don’t look like a lobster.”

When he does catch up, he sits down next to her and leans his head on her shoulder.

“How much farther?” his voice vibrates against her collarbone.

Skye’s surprised he’s only asked her once.

“Just another mile or two,” she assures him, then tries to stand back up. He immediately grabs her hand and pulls her back down.

“You know,” he returns his head to its resting place and wraps and arm around her, “we’ve got a perfectly nice view here. Look at all these beautiful trees, so… green… and… leafy.”

Skye nearly chokes on her laughter, but then his lips make their way up her neck and she’s sorely tempted to just enjoy the green, leafy trees. She angles her body to face him, tilting his chin up so his lips meet hers.

“So?” he pulls back after a few moments to ask.

“I don’t know,” Skye tries to say, but his pressed back up against hers, refusing to let her speak properly. It’s enough to make her laugh, which in turn makes her gasp her for air. At that point Lance finally pulls back to allow her to catch her breath.

“I don’t know,” she begins again, leaning backward to keep him from trying any funny business again, “as much as fun as this rest break is, I really want to see that sunset. And I hear the vantage point is very romantic and secluded.

She drives her suggestion home with a wink, just to be sure he knows what she means.

His eyebrows quirk upwards in interest.

“I guess I can do a couple more miles,” he sighs, although Skye sees right through his exasperation, “but coming back might just be too much for me today. We might have to spend the night there, cuddled up together for warmth.”

Skye snorts and stands up, pulling him along after her.


	94. That Hurt (Skye/Lance Hunter- 10/29/14)

“Ouch.”

The first time Skye says it, Lance ignores her. The painkillers Simmons has her on have made her loopy enough that a minute ago she was blathering on about talking raccoons. Besides, he’s focused on stitching up the large wound on her arm, which is hard to do, considering his own injuries.

“That hurt,” she says again; this time her voice is sharper and clearer.

He pauses.

“Yes, well I’m stabbing you with a needle, so that’s bound to happen. And Simmons said no topical anesthetic. If you’d just stop swaying back and forth I’d finish faster,” he tells her.

“Your bedside manner suck,” she replies bluntly.

Apparently the drugs in her system have made her chatty as well as nonsensical. He was hoping they’d just knock her out, there’d be much less complaining that way.

“I’m a trained field medic, not a bloody surgeon,” he growls as he shifts his left arm to hold her steady. It was only popped back into its socket a little while ago, and the pain has him speaking through clenched teeth.

She holds still long enough for him to finish stitching her up, and he decides that if she can’t be unconscious for this, at least she’s not vomiting. He’s seen that reaction to painkillers before.

He helps her lie back on the cot and collects the equipment he’s been using for sterilization. He’s about to leave and see if Simmons needs any more help when he hears Skye’s talking to herself again.

“Yeah, but you’d be a cute surgeon,” she mumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last fill from my latest round of prompts. I'm hoping to write some Skimmons and Ward/Simmons stuff next, in case anyone was wondering.


	95. Skye/Jemma (Dress- 10/29/14)

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Skye asks from the doorway to Jemma’s room.

“Actually, I’m certain that I don’t. But I have to, so the point is moot,” Jemma picks through her closet, trying to find a cardigan nice enough to go with her dress, at least for the drive to the party.

“We can send someone else,” Skye insists. She’s already argued with Coulson over this, but if Jemma doesn’t want to do this, maybe he’ll reconsider.

“Yes, but none of you understand the science. If something goes wrong with the samples, you’d have no idea how to fix it. It would be like sending you in blind,” finding nothing suitable in her closet, she turns to Skye. “I may not have your training, but I’ve been in worse situations, and I’m still our best option.”

Skye sighs, but doesn’t push the issue any further. She might be persistent, but Jemma is immovably stubborn when she wants to be. If she’s made a decision, then it’s final.

Entering the room, Skye pulls a blue and gold silk shawl out from behind her back.

“Wear this,” she says. “It matches the dress.”

Jemma eyes the fabric fondly, “Didn’t you wear this in—“

“Vienna? Yeah. Think of it as a good luck charm,” Skye loops the shawl around Jemma’s neck.

The other woman scoffs, “There’s no such thing as—“

Skye cuts her off by tugging on the ends of the scarf to pull Jemma close. She lays a light kiss on her lips and they both lean out of it with smiles on their faces.

“On the bright side, it’s nice to finally have the occasion to wear this,” Jemma pulls a gold necklace with a blue pendant off her dresser.

Skye gave it to Jemma for Valentines Day. Unfortunately, Jemma deemed jewelry in the lab to be a safety hazard, so as much she loves it, it hasn’t seen much wear.

Skye sighs again, this time sounding significantly less upset.

“I guess,” she budges.

“Help me put it on?” Jemma asks and turns around so Skye can see what she’s doing.

Skye unclasps the necklace and slips it over Jemma’s head. She fumbles with it for a second but finally manages to hook it together.

When she’s finally got it, she leans in to press a feather-light kiss to the back of Jemma’s exposed neck. Then another. Then another, until Jemma starts giggling and swats backwards at her.

“That’s enough, I need to get going,” she insists through her laughter.

“You look beautiful,” Skye tells her. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with the impending risk, she would’ve mentioned it sooner.

Jemma turns to face her.

“I love you,” she says. She’s not going to confess her worries, but Skye knows they’re there.

“I love you, too.”

It’s the best way she has to reassure her.


	96. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Time Sleeping Together- 10/31/14)

When Lance appeared with a six pack of beer, claiming it was time to quit her research for the night, Skye had expected the usual off color jokes and frantic sex in a supply closet. That was becoming their favorite way to blow off steam.

Apparently Lance is in a strange mood, because rather than his usual terrible sense of humor, he’s telling stories about Izzy and Idaho and missions gone awry. He’s half-way through a story about Idaho accidentally sleeping with one of their targets when starts slipping over his words. At first Skye thinks it’s the alcohol, but barely touched his second bottle.

His eyes are rimmed with red and he keeps having to pause and collect himself.

He’s upset.

Skye’s not sure if today’s some sort of important day in their friendship or if something about their most recent missions triggered this reaction. But he’s not offering any additional information up and she’s learned that prying into his personal life usually just leads to stories he regrets telling her the next morning.

"I think it’s time to call it a night," she tells him.

He protests, more out of obligation than any real desire to stay awake. Eventually he follows her to his room, still struggling to get through the part where Idaho’s underwear is trapped under the woman’s pillow.

In most circumstances, Skye would probably find the story hilarious.

Lance punches in his key code enters the room; Skye waits in the doorway.

He kicks off his shoes, then strips off his shirt. She’s seen him naked plenty of times, but this seems more intimate. They’re usually in a rush and in cramped quarters, and preoccupied with lips and hands on skin. 

She’s not sure why she’s still waiting in the doorway as his pants drop to the floor and he climbs into the bed.

She’s trying to convince herself that it’s most definitely time for her to leave when he speaks.

"Stay."

She wouldn’t exactly call his voice pleading, but it’s close. He’s not facing her, and she thinks his eyes might be closed, but she’s the only person in the room and he can’t be sleep-talking that soon after his head hit the pillow.

Still, they’re not exactly dating and not exactly friends. This isn’t familiar territory for her.

She’s not sure what to do.

"Or not, forget I asked."

Skye considers doing what he’s asked, stepping into the hall and forgetting that she’s seen him like this.

But she steps into the room, careful to close the door silently.

She pulls her keycard lanyard over her head and drops it on the floor, thankful she changed into workout clothes after they returned from their mission.

She crawls into the bed next to Lance, sticking close to the edge of the bed, not sure exactly how close she wants to be.

He squirms around a bit, leaning back towards her. Instinctively she meets him in the middle, draping her right arm across his chest.

It feels nice, having his back pressed up against her like this. It’s been a while since she’s just slept next to someone.

They both doze off fairly quickly, Lance exhausted from whatever upsetting thoughts have been swirling through his mind, and Skye warm and comfortable in his presence.


	97. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Day in New Apartment- 10/31/14)

"So what now?" Lance asks after they’ve unpacked the dishes and made the bed.

"I think we decorate it," Skye replies.

"You think?"

"Before Shield, I lived in a van. You’d know better than me."

He shakes his head.

"Military, then private contract work. I wasn’t exactly putting down roots."

"So basically, what you’re telling me is that neither of us has any experience living like normal adults."

 

"Pretty much."

Doubt creeps into Skye’s mind. She and May had covered how to blend in at high society parties, college campuses, offices, and a variety of other common situations. But two months pretending to be an average couple in an average apartment complex in an average area of an average city? She doesn’t feel prepared for this.

Fortunately, she has people to look out for her.

Her phone buzzes.

Check e-mail.

The text is from a contact labelled Jane Bennet. It’s the name Skye’s assigned to Jemma’s phone, because Jemma Simmons is currently wanted by the Hydra team they’re trying to get close to.

Skye clicks the mail icon on her phone and after a few seconds an email with the subject heading ‘apartment’ loads.

Skye & Lance Bennet Apartment Shopping List, it reads, followed by a number of different furniture and decor items.

"I guess this is where we start," she says when she shows Lance the email.

"Ikea, then?" he suggests. "I believe that’s where all the hip, cheap apartment owners shop."

"I don’t think the hip, cheap apartment owners refer to themselves as hip and cheap," she teases him as she grabs the keys to their nondescript silver Honda off the kitchen table.

It takes them two hours at Ikea to find everything on Jemma’s list. As it turns out, Lance has strong feelings on area rugs.

"What do you think?" Skye asks, when they finish setting things up around midnight.

"I think it’ll do. We’d better get to bed. We have an early start tomorrow, Mrs. Bennet."

Skye rolls her eyes and takes in the combination kitchen/living room one last time.

It’s not the Bus or the Playground, where she’s spent most of the last couple years. And it’s certainly not the van she lived out of before that.

But despite all her apprehensions about this mission, she thinks she can call this place home. Even if it means sleeping next to a ‘husband’ who’s a hardcore snuggler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued in chapter 98- first time sharing a bed


	98. Skye/Lance Hunter (First Time Sharing a Bed- 11/1/14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continued from Chapter 97 drabble- first time sharing a bed

Skye expected him to snore, so she packed earplugs.

He doesn’t snore.

He doesn’t steal the blankets or kick in his sleep, either. In fact, of all the men she’s slept with he’s probably the most pleasant to fall asleep next to. And they aren’t even actually together.

At least she found it pleasant until she wakes up from a dream about being attacked by living vines in the middle of a rainforest.

There’s a reason for that.

Somehow, over the course of the few hours they’ve been sleeping, Lance has crept closer and closer to her. She can feel his face weighing down some of her hair and hear the rhythmic puff of his breath in her ear. His right arm is wrapped around her waist and pulling her close against his chest. They’re spooning.

Between that and the heavy comforter and the long pajama pants she’s wearing (he’d argued for sleeping in the nude, but backed down before she even had to threaten him)

She tries to wriggle away, and successfully manages to free her hair, but ends up with one of his legs stuck between hers.

She wriggles a bit harder, but his arm just tightens around her. She can actually feel his bicep clench.

It’s not unpleasant.

Finally, she uses what limited mobility she has to kick the sheet and comforter away from her body. When they’re halfway off, she finally feels comfortable.

He finally responds to her movements, nuzzling his face against the back of her neck and mumbling incoherently.

She settles back against him, and falls asleep quickly.

She still tells him off for it in the morning.


	99. Fitz & Jemma (First Post-Hydra Nightmare- 11/1/14)

It’s late, and Fitz has been so caught up in the work he’s been doing on his side of the lab that he doesn’t even notice Jemma has fallen asleep (and okay, maybe he’s been putting a lot of effort into avoiding interactions with her).

But the low whining coming from her side does break through his concentration.

That’s her nightmare noise.

He’s pulled enough all-nighters with her to have heard it more than a few times. He’d wake her up, she’d confess to him that she’d been dreaming of a bad grade, a botched presentation, or nonsensical data.

He can’t even imagine what appears in her bad dreams these days.

He hasn’t asked what happened with Hydra and she hasn’t volunteered any information about it. She hasn’t volunteered much at all.

He can feel her staring at him from across the room sometimes, studying him while he works, studying him while he bounces ideas off of Mack.

But she hasn’t said much to him since her first day back.

Part of him thinks that’s for the best.

But this time it’s him studying her. Her head lolls across her left arm, which is splayed out across the lab table. Somehow she’s managed to fall into a position that completely avoids knocking down all of the equipment crowding her workspace.

Six months ago, he’d have already crossed the room and nudged her awake. But six months ago he was a different person, and they had a different relationship.

It takes effort just to walk over to her. He hovers to the side of her, trying to force himself to tap her on the shoulder.

Just one little push, she’s not a very heavy sleeper. Maybe if he just cleared his throat loudly, it would be enough.

But he just… can’t.

There’s a wall between him, and right now he needs it. Quickly, without looking back, he walks out of the lab. Maybe if he just heads to the kitchen for a glass of water, she’ll have woken up by the time he gets back.


	100. Skye/Jemma (First Fight- 11/2/14)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is my 100th drabble. I'm thinking of starting new drabble collections on AO3 for each of my (more frequently written ships). Do you all think that's a good idea or a bad idea? Let me know, maybe?

"Spare me the lecture, I already got one from Coulson," Skye mutters.

Jemma doesn’t say anything at all, just methodically cleans and bandages each of the many wounds along the right side of Skye’s body.

"You know what? I take it back, please say something. Yell at me. It’s got to be better than this," Skye says when Jemma’s halfway finished.

The other woman sighs deeply and shakes her head.

"You could have been killed. You nearly were killed.”

"But I wasn’t."

Thus far, Jemma had done a good job keeping her rage in check. It all comes out now.

"Do you honestly think that makes it okay? You disappeared in the middle of mission. We were all worried sick; Hunter and Trip have spent the last twenty-four hours beating themselves up for not noticing that you slipped away. The fact you made it back in one piece doesn’t change that."

"You don’t get it," Skye mumbles. "How could you get it? You didn’t spend your entire life wondering where you came from. You knew. You were loved."

It’s a battle between Jemma’s willpower and the tears that threaten to leak from her eyes.

"You’re loved here, by Coulson and May and Trip and Fitz and everyone. You’re loved by me. Isn’t that enough?"

What she doesn’t say is that she hasn’t spoken to her own parents since she let them know she was alive after Shield’s downfall. She doesn’t say that she’s struggling to let this team be enough. 

She just leaves the room, leaves Skye sitting there with half her wounds still waiting to be cleaned.

Eventually, Hunter comes in and finishes taking care of Skye.

And eventually Skye and Jemma do talk. Skye promises not to disappear without a trace again. And Jemma promises not to bottle up all her frustrations.

And things return to normal.


End file.
